Chapter 12: A Creature of Will
The forest was angry. The centaur could feel it in the dense damp soil which crumbled beneath his hooves. There was a kind of current, a pulse in the earth, which spoke the moods of the forest. Whether it was the humming of the creatures that inhabited the soil or the vibration of those who walked upon it, he had no way of knowing. Perhaps it was a current caused by the roots of the ancient trees as they burrowed beneath the ground, twisting and driving their way down toward an inevitable hell. He simply did not know.
He did know that when the forest was in such a mood it often meant that there was a disturbance somewhere within its leafy bounds. The last time he had felt such disquiet an evil had taken root, a creature at half-life had walked among them, stalking unicorns and slaying them to drink their blood. Such things were not abided by the forest or its inhabitants. Such creatures were driven out, exorcised, and balance restored.
So when he came upon the human girl curled at the base of the ancient willow he wondered if she were the cause of the disturbance, if it was she who had struck the chord and sounded the imbalance. He watched her, not knowing what she was capable of, from a dense thicket of browns and greens which blended with the sleek coat of his body keeping him hidden among the foliage.
She was shivering and he wondered at it. It was true that humans were ill-equipped to manage the cold without their garments; they were a relatively bald race of creatures. Yet it was a mild evening; heat packed beneath the soil which gave off warmth like coal in a furnace. The wind was gentle, balmy.
He struck out from behind the thicket and circled closer. She was pale, sweat beaded along her brow. She did not look well.
"Girl," he said, at a loss for how to address her.
She turned unfocused eyes to him. Her shivering continued, this time more violently. She was chilled to the bone, teeth chattering, eyes large, pupils dilated.
"Polyjuice," she murmured.
A witch, then, the centaur thought, from the school perhaps. He didn't like them much. Magical humans weren't much better than the regular kind. He stepped back, hind legs striking out behind him, easing his body away from her and back toward the thicket.
It was possible that she was the source of the unrest and he had a choice: summon the herd and drive her out or simply forget he'd found her at all. She did not look well. Perhaps if he left her here alone, the problem would solve itself. After all, there were many creatures in the forest that lacked the ability to reason; they would simply react to the presence of one so foreign, destroying her as hunger bade them.
He might have left if her eyes hadn't focused at last and turned, pleading, to his face.
"Please," she said.
Something about the word struck him. The girl had manners, he thought, and somehow he knew that she was not a creature who would slay unicorns. It remained to be seen what kind of creature she was, but the manners at least had bought her the chance to show him.
OOO
Draco prodded his flesh experimentally. He'd seen the torn skin heal, knitting itself together, resolving into gleaming welts and seeping weals, suppurating briefly before mending completely, leaving little trace of the damage it had sustained. Snape was indeed adept at healing. Draco remained sore, but he was whole once again and comforted by the notion of being intact.
Snape had instructed him to remain here in his office until he returned. There was a punishment due no doubt, and Draco had to wonder what it would consist of. Surely casting the Cruciatus on another student would result in more than the simple deduction of house points and a tedious detention. He shook his head. It didn't matter. The discipline at Hogwarts was positively benign relative to the discipline at the manor, which tended toward the medieval.
The door to Snape's office opened and Draco rose to his feet, expecting that the professor would greet him somewhat displeased with his actions. Somewhat, but not thoroughly; it was Potter who'd been on the receiving end of the Unforgivable Curse after all and it was no secret that Snape despised Potter.
It was not Snape who entered the office, however. Lucius Malfoy crossed the threshold looking well-groomed as ever but also quite put out. He strode toward his son, clearly in a fury. Draco barely had time to notice the silvered head of his father's cane, light glinting from its surface, before Lucius was upon him, the cane swinging toward his face.
Draco didn't flinch. His father may have been angry, but they both knew that he wouldn't strike. The cane was reserved solely for wayward house elves and Muggles; it would never be stained with Malfoy blood. As predicted, Lucius drew up short, the cane coming to rest mere inches from his son's face.
"What am I to do with you, boy?" Lucius asked gruffly.
Draco held his tongue knowing a rhetorical question when he heard one.
Lucius grabbed Draco by the arm and jerked him roughly from the room. "Fortunately, it is no longer for me to decide."
OOO
The moment he touched her, the centaur knew that something was wrong. She was not a half-life creature at all, but rather there were two lives about her, twined somehow, and in conflict.
He carried her in his arms, picking his way through the forest. She was feverish to the touch, yet she continued to shiver against him.
The herd would not be pleased that he had brought one so foreign among them. Yet, he knew that they would be powerless to resist such a creature whose seeming duality clouded her fate. She was a challenge to prophesy, the likes of which he'd not seen in some time.
OOO
Lucius shoved him hard enough so that he went stumbling into the drawing room. Draco regained his footing just in time to nearly lose it again as his mother flung herself into his arms.
"Steady, Narcissa," Lucius said coldly.
Narcissa ignored him and continued to hug her son fiercely.
"Mum," Draco murmured. She was squeezing the life out of him, but if that were the price of her love he would gladly pay it. She was the only source of affection here at the manor; one that he often feared would one day run dry.
Narcissa released him finally, dashing tears from her eyes. She ran her fingers over his face, his shoulders and down along his arms, making sure that he was whole, that he was her son as she remembered him. She grabbed the left sleeve of his shirt and pushed it up to his elbow, her fingers tracing the flesh on the underside of his forearm. The skin was bare as she remembered, save for two pale round scars. Narcissa dropped his arm then, stepping away from her son, blinking back tears.
"Leave us," Lucius said to his wife. Narcissa narrowed her eyes in challenge, but at the last moment decided to abide by her husband's request. Hers was a war to be waged carefully and above all in subtle fashion. She withdrew from the drawing room but not without one last gentle glance at her son.
Lucius stripped off his traveling cloak and tossed the garment over the back of an armchair. His anger, palpable since the moment he'd seen Draco at Hogwarts, had not abated in the least.
"It is your actions which have brought us here," he informed his son. "You nearly killed Potter."
Draco blinked in mild confusion. Lucius was angry, and granted it didn't take much to make Lucius angry, because he had used an Unforgivable Curse on his enemy, and not just any enemy, the enemy. It didn't make sense.
"I'm sorry, Father," Draco said, "but I was under the impression that that was what you had trained me to do."
"Stop your foolish tongue this instant! I will not abide such flippancy." Lucius stalked across the room. He stopped in front of an ancient chaise and threw himself down onto it with a vengeance. The furniture creaked in protest. "I have trained you, groomed you, to carry out the orders of our most revered Dark Lord." It certainly sounded like Lucius to say such, but the words came out somewhat louder than they should have been, almost as if he were saying them for the benefit of someone else. "And surely you are aware of the Dark Lord's wishes to vanquish the Potter boy himself."
Draco nodded slowly as realization dawned.
"It would not do for one to destroy Potter and in so doing deprive the Dark Lord of his greatest desire. So it seems, my son, that you have overstepped your bounds."
"I am to be punished, then?" Draco asked, a sense of dread tightening his throat.
"You are to… make amends. Whether that includes punishment, it is not for me to say."
"Who, then? Who is to say?"
"The Dark Lord himself." Lucius rose to his feet. "He is here and he wishes to speak to you."
OOO
Hermione woke to the sound of hushed voices. She was shivering despite the warmth of a large fire which gleamed in the dark a short distance away. She lay curled in the grass of a clearing. The sky hung low, heavy and dark above her. To her right a cluster of equine shapes caught the dappled light cast by the fire.
"Is it because you cannot scry her, Glamis, that you fear her so?"
"I do not fear her, Lucan, but she is most unnatural. Two fates, one body; an impossibility and yet here she is," Glamis answered. He stood taller than the rest. The firelight flickered along his coat making it difficult to distinguish the color.
Hermione realized that the centaurs were talking about her. She thought it best to remain silent and still.
"We ought to be rid of her." A third voice joined the first two. "Don't like witches much. You'll be recalling the last one as paid us a visit."
"I recall," Lucan said. "You speak of the ministry witch, Cawdor."
Cawdor gave a derisive snort. "That's right, the roly-poly one with the gruesome fate."
"Dyspepsia, gruesome?" Glamis asked. "For her perhaps."
"There are plenty of herbs here in the forest that would cure such ailments," said Lucan.
"She was not deserving of them or of our knowledge," Glamis replied.
"And this one is?" asked Cawdor.
"This one harms no one," Lucan said.
"We don't know that. She angers the forest."
"The forest has been angry for some time. I doubt that the little one is the cause."
"You are partial to her, Lucan, because you found her. She is not a foal to be dandled and coddled," said Glamis. "This one is passing strange."
"It is none of our affair what she is. If the stars in the heavens do not tell us, the planets, the runes; then it is not worth knowing." The three centaurs turned their heads to see who had spoken. It was a bearded roan who'd joined them by the fire.
"She has confounded the stars," Lucan murmured.
"A right sympathizer in our midst; another Firenze," Cawdor scoffed.
"No." Lucan shook his head, tossing his hair which was long and crept down his back, not unlike a mane. "But I have thought that if we cannot scry her, then there is a reason for it. It is perhaps because she is the portent, she is the sign."
"She is the cipher, more like," said Cawdor.
"Perhaps she is here to tell us that we can no longer rely on the stars or the old ways for answers. Those ways did not protect us or the forest, or the creatures that inhabit it." Lucan began to pace around the fire, hooves striking the earth in a soft tattoo which kept rhythm with his thoughts. "She is a creature of twined fate, a departure, a new beginning. We cannot read her fate, because there is more than one. Those fates are in conflict and she must choose."
"It is fate," Glamis said. "There is no choosing."
"For us perhaps," Lucan said, his eyes bright, "but she is a new creature, a creature of will."
OOO
Malfoy Manor was busy. Draco noticed the heightened state of activity as he walked through the main hall. House elves scurried about, carrying armloads of linens, making ready for what appeared to be a grand event. No doubt it was the Dark Lord's presence that had thrown everyone into a tizzy.
He'd been told that Voldemort had set up an audience chamber of sorts in the ballroom, which, consequently, was the largest room in the house. More of a throne room now, Draco thought, as he approached the massive double doors which lead to the chamber.
Nott and Mulciber stood sentinel outside the doors. When they saw Draco, they nodded and stepped aside. The large doors creaked inward of their own accord, allowing him entry into the Dark Lord's presence. Like royalty, Draco thought, his lip curling with a touch of irony. The Malfoys had always considered themselves something of royalty, and now they had finally been outranked here in their own home.
At first Draco saw nothing but the cloaked figures of Death Eaters, scattered and milling about the room. At his entry they turned and resolved themselves into two parallel lines facing each other, which formed a path that led to Voldemort's throne. The throne itself was nothing more than a cordovan wingchair, one of a set from his father's study.
Voldemort gestured with long, pale fingers for the boy to approach. Draco obeyed, walking through the ranks of Death Eaters to stop in front of the Dark Lord's chair. There was a small part of Draco that found the whole situation entirely ludicrous, while the larger part of him walked in terror. He took refuge in protocol and sketched a bow, remaining low until the Dark Lord spoke.
"Rise, Master Malfoy," Voldemort said. "I bid you welcome to your own home." Then the oddest thing happened. Voldemort chuckled. He dismissed his court with a wave of his thin, spidery fingers. The attendant Death Eaters filed from the room leaving only the two of them. "And now I shall stand, shall I? Sitting is for when one wishes to intimidate. I trust that you are properly intimidated by now and so you shan't mind if I take to my feet."
Voldemort rose from the chair, pushing back the hood of his cloak to reveal his pale white face, skin stretched taut across the sharp bones of his skull. His red eyes gleamed, slit-pupiled and sharp above the nose that wasn't a nose—rather a pair of nostril slits flat in the parchment-thin skin of his face. He was altogether otherworldly, and it was difficult to believe that he had once been a boy like Draco, a boy called Tom. On his feet Voldemort was tall, thin and much more intimidating than when seated. The dark wizard had quite frankly lied.
Draco lowered his eyes in an effort to gather his thoughts. He was to make his apologies and do whatever the Dark Lord wished. It seemed simple enough but he knew that doing Voldemort's bidding was often fraught with complications such as murder or death.
"I am sorry, my lord," Draco said quietly. "My father tells me I've displeased you."
"I'm going to confide in you, Draco. Your father is a most useful servant, but he is, in sum, an imbecile."
"Sir?"
"He believes I have summoned you here to punish you for your actions, when the truth is that I am envious."
"Envious?"
"You have had the Potter boy in your grasp, have you not?"
Draco nodded.
"I have, too, but every time he manages to slip through my fingers. There is always interference, some business with our wands or some such, or your Headmaster contriving to protect him. But you, my boy, have watched your Cruciatus Curse twist through the boy's body."
Draco listened carefully to the play of the Dark Lord's speech, the way his voice wound its way around words, dispatching diphthongs with ease and lingering to appreciate sibilants.
"What did it feel like, Draco, when you cast the curse; all that power in you, doing as you bid?"
Draco thought that it was hard to put into words. He had cast the curse and it had been familiar. Familiarity bred one of two things: comfort or contempt. He was comfortable with the curse, with the hate that fueled it, with the power that hate had given him. Yet there was some small part of him that found itself contemptuous of his own actions. There was some small part of him which had felt, quite simply, sick. It was then that he realized: he had lost his appetite for destruction.
"Speak, boy," Voldemort prompted.
"It felt… like magic," Draco finished lamely. The Dark Lord threw back his head and roared with laughter.
"Why of course it did! Foolish of me to even ask. You are quite formidable, Draco. I see that I was indeed wise to choose you for such a delicate task."
Draco lowered his eyes. It was a task that he'd neglected and even sabotaged.
"You have grown strong, and there is something to be said for such strength. It is indeed an asset, but if not properly harnessed it could become a threat. Therefore it is time."
With a quickness that belied his stately presence, Voldemort grasped Draco's wrist, seizing it with wiry strength between his thin fingers.
"You shall have your mark, Master Malfoy," the Dark Lord said evenly. His eyes darkened and his voice grew harsh. Draco knew in that instant that the earlier pleasantries were counterfeit; he'd been subject to farce. "Let the mark guide you on your task and memorialize your debt to me, for there is indeed a debt for such graciousness on my part. That I spare your life, the lives of your parents, and the life of a certain girl who I understand has become most precious to you, is not without its price. You will pay without complaint."
Voldemort released his wrist with such force that Draco staggered backward. "And you will never again seek to injure that which is mine to destroy."
OOO
The half-giant was blubbering again. He was an enormous creature, and as such he encompassed many things; both the wheat and the chaff, the corn and the husk; but mostly he was full of heart and tears.
When he saw the girl he knew her instantly, spoke her name and took her limp shivering form in his arms.
"It appears one of your foals has strayed," Lucan said.
"Yeh found her, yeh did. I'll be thankin' yeh righ' kindly fer it."
"Mind your creatures, Hagrid, especially this one. The fates fight over her."
Hagrid bristled. "Curse the ruddy fates! Tha's Hermione yer talkin' about. She's no creature, she's my friend!"
The half-giant turned and, carrying the girl in his arms, tromped back through the forest the way he had come, all the while muttering about the star-gazing foolishness of centaurs.
OOO
The hooded figures were witnesses, witnesses all. They closed in on him, in a sea of dark cloaks, hoods obscuring their faces. They circled him and then the circle collapsed inward, buckling as if under the influence of some unseen centripetal force. The mass of Death Eaters crushed his body between them. As one they surged forward and he was swept along in the crush, buoyed by their suffocating nearness.
At the sound of the Dark Lord's voice they fell back instantly, resolving into a wide circle around him. Draco stumbled to his knees, a fixed point to anchor the arc of a compass, a reluctant origin. He was naked to the waist, his shirt having been stripped away at the start of the ceremony which was in his mind either minutes or hours ago.
He'd been awake for more than twenty-four hours, having kept the required vigil prior to receiving the mark. The resulting lack of sleep had warped his perception of time. Whether it had run slowly or very quickly, he was not at liberty to say. He was stuck in the present moment which stretched out in front of him into eternity.
Narcissa was among the ranks of Death Eaters that formed the circumference of the circle. She watched her son, terrified for him. He was just a boy, she kept thinking, even though as she looked at him she realized that it wasn't true. There was strength in him, in his arms, his shoulders, the lean cast of his body, which seemed suddenly newly defined; the traces of the boy had been all but whittled away. She wondered when it had happened, and stifled a sob.
The Dark Lord was speaking. Draco heard the sounds, but not the words. He felt hollow, empty. There was a reason for it. The fast had lasted nearly twenty-four hours as well. There was nothing in him, literally. It was as required. He was nothing until the Dark Lord made him something. He was an empty vessel of pure, pure blood.
The rules of the ritual were arcane, but they appeared to be buttressed by an ascetic belief that through the discipline of self-denial the initiate could achieve a heightened awareness that prepared him to be touched by the divinity of the Dark Lord. Somewhere, somehow, Draco knew all of this and none of it. He felt only the sluggish throb of the blood in his veins, heard only the sound of the Dark Lord's voice as if from a distance.
The question was asked. Who offers this boy? Narcissa could not bring herself to move. She watched as a cloaked figure stepped forward and knew it to be Lucius. The figure paused, expecting her to join him, but her feet would not move. After a moment, another hooded figure emerged from the circle. Narcissa could not see the face, but she knew the figure by its quick, darting movements. It was her sister Bella.
Draco's eyes were on the ground in front of him. The Dark Lord stood over him and he knew not to look into his face. He felt rather than saw the two figures that approached him, and a familiar grasp caught his left wrist and jerked his arm forward, exposing the underside. The grip told him that it was his father. The desperation in the fingers told him that his father knew that he was about to be supplanted by a new authority, a fact which Lucius was loathe to accept. Lucius had no choice, however. As it had been with him, so it would be with his son. He handed Draco's wrist over to the Dark Lord's grasp.
At first Voldemort's touch was exceedingly, perhaps deceptively, gentle. Then the words were spoken and his long, spidery fingers tightened their grip. The Dark Lord drew his wand. The tip glowed, burning brightly, like a coal in a hearth. The light was harsh and magnificent, impudent and almost blinding. Draco was forced to turn his eyes away, but he shouldn't have. He shouldn't have because that's when it happened.
The wand touched his skin, searing the flesh of his arm. The flesh blackened and crumpled. It charred and flaked away from his arm, exposing layers of tissue and muscle beneath. The smell of burning flesh was sickening, and the pain was unlike anything he had ever experienced before. It was a new agony, hot and bright, greedy to usurp all other sensation. There was nothing but the pain as the tip of the wand dragged across his skin, leaving raw tissue in its wake. This was refining fire, Draco realized, purifying and terrible.
He felt darkness close in on him. Sweat ran into his eyes, stinging them. His vision blurred at the edges. He was reluctant, then, to trust his eyes when they showed him that his flesh was regenerating. It had grown anew, resurfacing the raw tissue, but this new skin grew back discolored. It was a molten, inky black. The new flesh took form, resolving itself into the lines of the Dark Mark.
Words were spoken and Draco was hauled to his feet. The newly minted mark throbbed and then the darkness was complete. The circle was broken and Draco collapsed into the sea of hooded figures, which bore him up and carried him from the chamber.
OOO
"You may place her there," Snape said, indicating a cot which had been prepared for that purpose.
Hagrid didn't budge. He stood immobile holding an unconscious Hermione in his arms. He was the largest one in the small, dark room at the bottom of the enchanted stairs, head dusting the ceiling, towering over Snape and the minimal furniture present.
The trip to Spinner's End had not been easy. Hagrid was an extremely noticeable figure with an extremely noticeable means of transportation. He was not often sent on missions of stealth into Muggle neighborhoods, with the exception of collecting Harry for the very first time. Even then, it had not been so much a stealth mission as an opportunity to use his stupendous size to intimidate the Dursleys. Dumbledore had explained that this current foray into Spinner's End was to be taken with the utmost discretion. In other words, Hagrid was to stay out of sight of Muggles.
Dumbledore hadn't explained, however, why he should deliver Hermione to Snape in the first place. Dumbledore had a habit of that, not explaining much. It was right frustrating at times, but it seemed to be the way of great wizards to leave out the important bits. Hagrid accepted it from Dumbledore, but he didn't trust Snape enough to extend him that courtesy. He would not put Hermione down before he put his foot down and got some answers.
"I'm not puttin' her anywhere until yeh tell me wha's wrong with her and why I brought her here ter yeh instead of ter the Hospital Wing."
"Miss Granger is ill and my expertise is needed in the matter."
"Well, no offense, but I wouldn't want yeh fer my healer. Yer powerful, but not so cheerful as a bloke would be wantin' yeh nursin' him back ter health."
"I fail to see what being cheerful has to do with anything," Snape replied crisply. "Put the girl down."
Hagrid glowered at Snape. He took one look at Hermione, however, and his concern for the girl trumped his mistrust of the former Potions Master. He relented and set her down gently on the cot. "Yeh can fix this?" Hagrid asked.
Snape simply looked at him as he would into the eyes of a dull and brutish beast. Instead of answering, he tried a different tack.
"It seems I should thank you for retrieving Miss Ganger. The centaurs are less than fond of me. They find certain similarities between myself and the late Professor Quirell."
"Meanin' yer both creepy," Hagrid said, only belatedly realizing that what he had meant to be a guarded thought had been voiced aloud.
"Creepy?" Snape arched one sharp black brow. It crept upward on his forehead nearly meeting his hairline. "A scientific term no doubt."
"Well, I ought ter be gettin' back ter the castle. Yeh be careful of her, now," Hagrid said gruffly. "Yeh make her well."
Severus Snape looked at the pale girl on the cot before him.
"I shall do as is required," he said.
OOO
He was relatively unscathed. The only bit of him burned was his throat where the firewhisky had streaked a path only moments before. He shouldn't have had the drink. He stomach rebelled, threatening to expel the potent liquid. Draco fought the wave of nausea and counted his lesson learned. Never, ever again.
They were congratulating him, all of them: Aunt Bella and Uncle Rodolphus, the Notts, the Carrows, the Bulstrodes, the pureblood families. The hooded cloaks were gone and they had gathered, in all of their finery, in the ballroom for a celebration. The ballroom was clearly where the house elves had focused their labors. There were tables laden with food and drink, enchanted ice sculptures and elaborate floral arrangements of varying sizes. A group of musicians played softly, providing an elegant rhythmic backdrop to what was already a cacophony of noise and sound.
He was overwhelmed. He had gone from feeling utter emptiness during the ritual, to feeling that there was too much inside him. The profusion of light, color and sound that was this macabre ball didn't help. It made him skittish, pushed as he was to the point of utter saturation.
Draco felt Lucius watching him from across the room. His father was holding court among the high ranking Death Eaters, members of Voldemort's inner circle. He was free to do so as Voldemort himself was not present. Lucius was pleased to be the center of attention, but his eyes when he looked at Draco were hard. There was no warmth in them.
There were too many people in the room. They were incredibly loud and incredibly close. Draco couldn't breathe. It put him in mind of the ritual when the cloaked figures had closed in on him. He looked at the faces of the people in the ballroom, trying to connect with someone, but he realized that he couldn't. He was somehow isolated despite his close proximity to the madding crowd.
Draco fought his way free of the ballroom and stumbled out into the hall. It was suddenly violently quiet in comparison. There were guests scattered about talking softly in twos or threes. He managed to avoid them all and slip into the cool darkness of a nearby alcove.
He sat on the floor, hunched, with his head between his knees. The feeling of fullness returned as if he'd absorbed too much. The mark on his arm throbbed suddenly with pain and with presence. It was a curious feeling: the presence of another in him, in his flesh, connected to his body. It was a feeling that Draco didn't like at all. He thought with the petulance of a small child that he didn't want to share. His mind and body were his own. That was no longer true, however, and he knew it.
It was a funny thing, his memory of the ceremony. It was warped and battered, whole sections of it were lost to him. Most of the words he could not recall, having heard them through the fog of his vigil and his fast. But there were parts of it that leapt up bright and clear in his consciousness, words which were burned forever in his mind as surely as the mark had been burned into the flesh of his arm. Those words came back to him now as spoken by Voldemort.
"Your will is mine, your fate is mine, your life is mine in duty and in service as your Lord. Rise, Draco Malfoy and devour death."
Draco pushed himself to standing in the coolness of the alcove, knowing that he was no longer his own man. It angered him. If he were to give his life to someone then he wanted to choose. The choice, however, had been made for him. It was done.
Having been offered, he had nothing left to offer her.
OOO
There was a goddess on his doorstep. Snape stared at her. Where she had come from he could not fathom. She stood without a cloak in the cold night air, pale blonde hair piled elaborately on top of her head. Her hair was as elaborate as her dress, a gown the color of elf-made wine which bared one shoulder even as it fastened over the other. Her breath fogged in the frigid air as it escaped her lips, the only trace of warmth about her. The rest was ice.
She slapped him.
That was the thing about goddesses. They were often inexplicably angry.
The illusion shattered, Snape made her a formal bow that managed to be both ironic and patronizing. He straightened, the sting of her fingers still on his cheek, and stepped aside to allow Narcissa Malfoy entrance into his humble home.
Narcissa pushed past him into the sitting room, her confection of a gown slithering over the dusty floorboards behind her.
"You failed, Severus. You failed to protect him!"
"Ah, Narcissa, delighted to see you again, though I fear that I'm a bit underdressed for the occasion. Tell me, to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?"
"Do not patronize me, Severus! I have come from the revel. The Dark Lord has taken Draco. He has received the mark."
Snape stood very still in the silence that followed. "It was inevitable," he said finally.
Narcissa gasped, choking back tears. "Nothing is inevitable," she said. "You. You were to protect him. You have neglected your duties. He has taken my son!"
"I'll remind you that I have not at all been remiss in my duties. If you'll recall my oath was not to protect Draco from the one who commands him, but to aid him in his task and keep him from harm. If there is anyone who has failed to protect him, it is your husband. Lucius Malfoy has doomed your son, Madam."
Narcissa flew at him then, slapping and clawing at his face. Snape backed away from her until he felt the wall of shelves lined with books behind him. He had no choice but to confront her. He grabbed her wrists, clamped them together in one of his hands and then crushed her close, caging her against his chest to quiet her. It was a bit like trying to trap a bird against his body. He was clipped by wings and scratched by talons as Narcissa fought, but eventually she did quiet.
He wasn't sure how long it took for her to calm, but it was long enough to know that he did not like having her so close. He did not like the feel of her hair as it brushed his chin, or her tears against his neck. It was undignified and downright unseemly.
"It is Lucius who has harmed your son. He did so years ago when he chose to ally himself with the Dark Lord. You know this to be true, but you wouldn't dare say it to him. You wouldn't dare. You say it to me because I am the easy target. I am the joke. I am tired, Narcissa, bone tired of being the joke."
His words had the desired effect. She stood back from him, her pale blue eyes touched with pain. He released her wrists, relieved that he no longer had the feel of her in his hands. Something else happened, however, as she stood apart from him. He felt curiously exposed. His fingers groped the shelf behind him and drew out a dusty tome which he held to his chest in front of him. It was silly, really, but something told him that there should be a barrier between them, that she should not come that close to him again. He turned his face from her.
"I have not failed in my duties," he said. "If it were so, I would be dead, would I not? I would be dead due to the nature of my vow to Draco."
"Your vow is to me, Severus. Is it so hard for you to serve me, to even look at me?" Narcissa stepped close to him again. She reached up to grasp his chin, twisting his face around to hers. "I am a fool," she said. "After all these years, you're still in love with a dead girl. You're still as blind."
Her hands found the book that he held between their bodies. One by one she pried his fingers free of the binding and slowly, with painstaking carefulness, she slipped the book from his hands.
Snape stared down at his empty hands, unable to fully comprehend what was happening. Narcissa set the book aside. Her fingers crept to his chin again and tilted it until his gaze met her eyes. "See me, Severus," she commanded. "See me."
With that Narcissa kissed him.
Snape was unable to move, his mouth a tight line, cold and resisting, but she would not relent. She had met such resistance before, touched her mouth to a man who was just as cold. In her grief she sighed against his lips and something caught in him.
He shuddered and slowly his mouth softened under hers. He returned her kiss, lost, but suddenly alive. He crushed her closer, fingers driving up into her hair, scattering pins and strands; successfully undoing in a matter of moments what it had taken a complex charm some time to create.
It was not at all what he wished. He had never wanted this again, never wanted to be close enough to feel the heat of her soft skin beneath his hands, never wanted to acknowledge the need within him that had flared at her touch. It was unfair how she had been made; that beauty was hers; that she was designed to feel this way pressed against him; that she was perfect in form and could draw forth his desire so.
He could not. He could not do this. Snape pushed her away.
"No," he said hoarsely. "It is a game to you, all of you…to…to torture me with things that can never be."
Narcissa stared at him, her color high, breath quick. "This can be, Severus."
He shook his head, broken. She stepped toward him again, but he knew that he could not allow it. With the little strength left in him he turned his back to her so that he faced the wall of books behind him. His fingers grasped the shelves to keep his hands from shaking.
Narcissa fell back, ashamed of the tears that coursed down her cheeks. She turned to leave, but not before she spoke her final words to his back.
"This could have been."
OOO
Uh, yeah, so I totally know that this is a Dramione fic, and I know that our heroes are totally separated right now and that instead of them making out, Snape totally made out with Narcissa (which I hadn't planned in advance by the way, it just sort of happened), but I had a few things that I needed to shake loose from the old plot tree before I could rightfully reunite them.
Rest assured that things will get back on track. Thanks for your patience and your awesome reviews.
Now to answer mayzie's questions re: chapter 6.
1. No idea why Luna is in the N.E.W.T potions class, other than the fact that I love Luna and wanted her to cameo. I think the real question, though, is what the heck is Ron doing in N.E.W.T.-level anything?
2. Harry was indeed paired with Parvati, but then Snape decided to switch partners so that everyone was paired with someone from a different house, which is how Hermione ends up with Draco, Harry with Luna and Ron gets stuck with the golem Imogene.
Until the next chapter vaya con Dios!