22. Surrender
S.
Lucius' knuckles were white; his fist tight around his wand. Severus' felt his heart batting in his ears, as though it had literally jumped up to his throat. It is a truth well-accepted that in times like this, the world moves in slow motion. That time stands still. And it did, just for a moment, as Lucius opened his mouth as though to speak, and then, the world jutted and restarted, and the present unfolded quickly and frantically, and everything happened at once.
"Please," Cressida said, her face pink and sticky with tears. "Please don't hurt me! I didn't know! I swear! I didn't know anything."
"A coincidence then?" Lucius spat.
"Yes!" she said. "I swear. I didn't know who he was... who you were…"
"No coincidences!"
"Lucius! If you think I'm going to stand here and let you hurt her…" Jessica warned.
"Jess, we should stay out of it… Let Mum talk to him, okay?"
Draco looked at his mother and urged her to act, with his wide grey eyes.
"Darling, please…" Narcissa said, raising both her hands as though to show his that she was unarmed.
Is she?
"… Don't do anything rash," she said. "I beg you."
There was panic in her voice. Panic on Cressida's face. Jessica's and Hermione's too. Severus could see her beside him, itching to intervene.
Severus remembered reading once that if someone held their wand to your head you should try, in the face of the insane, to stay calm. Remain stoic. Because, he'd read, the worst thing you can do is panic the person who holds your life in their hands. You need them to remain calm. They need to think clearly. The only thing more terrifying than a person holding a weapon, is a person with a weapon, who is beginning to lose control.
It was why he had stood still in the face of The Dark Lord in the Shrieking Shack. The reason he didn't fight back; didn't even raise his voice. Neither Cressida or Narcissa had read the book because their voices came louder and more terrified.
"Darling! Stop this nonsense…"
"No! She needs to explain herself!"
"I don't know anything!" she said again, this time louder, almost as a yell.
Lucius rolled his eyes. It was not just a gesture of irritation. It was nonchalant. It was cold.
Frightening, almost. Even to me.
Severus felt something knotted and heavy in his stomach.
Dread, he thought. This will not end well.
"Put your wand down, Lucius!" Narcissa urged.
"Please," Cressida begged, "I'll tell you anything you want to know. I'll do anything you ask me to, but I promise I didn't know!"
"Perhaps we should hear her out—" Severus said, but he did not finish the thought - it wasn't honest - he wasn't sure he wanted to hear her out.
Lucius looked as though he was hardly listening. Severus wondered if he even saw another face in the room. If he was aware anyone else spoke. He was fixed on Cressida – his eyes were wide and unblinking – hers too. They mirrored each other, both terrified, neither more so than the other. None more so than he, he reckoned, as the lead ball of dread in his stomach laced itself tighter.
"I didn't know who he was! I didn't know about my father either. Please, Lucius…"
"Don't talk to me as though I'm your friend!"
"I'm sorry!" she said, her voice high like a yelp.
"Quiet!" he barked.
He dropped his wand and pressed his fingers to his temples as though he could concentrate if he just pressed the right spot. Her hands were flat palms of surrender, that she tried to hold steady, but her fingers shook. It was then that he realised that the thing in the pit of his stomach wasn't dread. It was anticipation.
"Oh God, please…" – her voice was hardly audible now; a trembling whisper - "… please don't hurt me."
"Lucius," Narcissa said again, this time gently. "Come on, love. This isn't right."
If anyone can get through to him, she can, Severus thought, although part of him hoped that she couldn't change his mind. That their screaming stressed him into action. Because Severus had stood in front of the Dark Lord in the Shrieking Shack and he had done exactly as he was told to do in life or death situations. He had stayed calm. He had tried to reason with him. He had looked him in the eye. He had humanised himself to the man - the devil - who meant him harm and it hadn't mattered. He'd left him for dead anyway. What had doing as he was told ever done for him? What had being good done for any of them?
Decades have passed. How have any of us really changed?
His eyes narrowed as he looked at the woman. Severus had cared for Cressida, in his way, he supposed, but what did that compare to how he felt for Narcissa, or how Lucius felt for her? Severus watched his friend, waiting for a curse that never came, and his thoughts drifted to justification.
Maybe I could take the burden from him? Perhaps I could bear to have my soul torn in two? It's not revenge, he told himself, it's retribution. It's justice.
Severus had spent decades learning to curb this part of his personality – this more sinister aspect – his jealousy, his retaliatory nature, his need for vengeance. He'd kept it at bay by banishing it to the edges, but it lingered in the periphery like a cloud that threatened to descend and split open.
Lucius is not the only person in the room who loves Narcissa. He is not the only person who hates that awful bastard Tobin – I saw what he had done to her. Lucius is not the only person who could happily raise his wand to Cressida's pretty little temples and whisper the words I have only ever spoken once before,
It's just, he thought, it's right, as the grey cloud swept from the margins of his mind into the foreground. It shifted and distorted and expanded until it was all that there was – no clarity, no sense, just revenge.
Not revenge. Justice.
And just as he had the thought to reach for his wand – to end it right here, right now - he felt something at his hand that drew him out of his mind and back to the room. Skin on skin. Fingers, wrapped around his fingers and then circles of comfort on his palms. And just as quickly as it had descended, the grey cloud lifted, and he saw her face.
He wondered if there was something in his eyes that had betrayed his thoughts or if she had simply anticipated them. It was as though she knew exactly what it was that he needed, and she was exactly what he needed. She brought him back to himself – she pulled him out of the Shrieking Shack, just as she had really dragged him out of the damn place all those years ago. Hermione squeezed his hand once and looked at him, before taking her wand from her back pocket and taking a step forward.
It was the Gryffindor in her. He could see the Order of the damn Phoenix in her eyes as she stood in the home of the Death Eaters that had once threatened to kill her and she wouldn't stand back and let someone suffer the same fate. She had hurtled into their world and made herself at home, but she would not lose herself during her stay. Severus held his hand out in front of her to stop her, and she hung back. Instead, he moved forward, meeting Narcissa's gaze and nodding.
It's going to be okay, he thought, hoping that she might understand him, and believe it.
Severus stepped beside his friend and then slowly between the wand and the woman. Lucius did not say a word – his face was expressionless. Severus understood. He was becoming numb and unfeeling. It was the only way to rid yourself of your conscience long enough to commit the act. They had all done it under the leadership of the Dark Lord. It was how they coped in the moment and how they lived with the guilt in the aftermath.
"Lucius," Severus said, with all the stillness he could muster. "I know."
Lucius met Severus' eyes as he nodded.
"Believe me, I know."
:
H.
Doing nothing while Lucius Malfoy had held a wand to a woman's face had been an experience so jarring, so completely in contrast to who she felt she was at her core, that she felt her hands begin to shake as Severus moved forward to approach Lucius. He was exactly what the situation needed, she knew – Lucius needed Severus' steady hand, not her hot-head and lion-heart. And so she had waited and trusted him to take control of the situation. Which might well have been the most difficult thing she had done all year. She could trust him no problem… but to wait? To stand there while Severus continued to do nothing? She had known he would act eventually, but he had cut it rather fine.
"Lucius, I know. Believe me, I know," Severus said. "But you don't want to hurt her."
He knows? What does he know? she thought but she forced herself to hold her tongue. Severus and Lucius seemed to lock eyes with one another and Severus' pressed lips curved into a sorry smile.
"That feeling you have won't go away until you back off."
"I can't Severus."
"You can," he said. "Do you trust me?"
Lucius nodded as though by instinct and Hermione felt her fingertips buzz with anticipation.
"Then drop your wand."
"I can't," he said again.
Hermione thought she saw a curl to his top lip.
"You don't want to hurt her," Severus said.
"Oh, I do."
"No. You don't. It's not worth it. She is not worth it."
Lucius' eyes widened momentarily as though he had understood something and then narrowed, as he nodded in agreement.
"Okay," Lucius said.
Hermione felt as though she was missing half of the conversation. There was more to it, she was sure of it. There was something Severus wasn't saying – or rather, something he was saying that only Lucius understood. She felt herself recalling the trace of a memory from seven years ago. Severus was in her Father's armchair, throwing back glasses of whisky like apple juice. He told her more than he ever intended to. It was the first time that she had ever considered that there might be a romantic heart in Severus Snape's cold chest. Because just as he had an uncanny ability to say a lot, but tell very little, she was able to read into what wasn't said - every pause and every gesture. She read subtext like a book. But it seemed, Severus had written the damn thing. He lived for inference; for hints and connotations. He'd done it as long as she'd known him. Even as her teacher, he had spoken in riddles; riddles that she had understood.
Talk of Professor Lupin in the moonlight springs to mind.
Oh, she had thought she was so damn clever, pulling hidden truths from Severus Snape that he had not meant to give away. But every word was a careful manipulation. He was clever and thoughtful. He spoke subtext. Always had.
He's doing it right now.
How foolish she had been to think that Severus would have ever revealed more than he intended. Which meant what? That he said exactly what he had meant to say? That she had offered him kindness and empathy he had closed all the doors in her face but cracked open a window? She knew him pretty well, she fancied, and still she found herself learning something new about him. Every time she felt like she was reaching the deepest most layers, she found that she was barely scratching the surface. Life would at least never be boring with him.
Lucius tucked his wand into his robes, and Cressida dropped to her knees. Hermione rushed to her as Jessica did the same. Cressida resisted Hermione's help. Even now she was stubborn, although perhaps she could forgive it under the circumstances. Hermione backed away from Cressida and as she looked over her shoulder, she saw Lucius' silver and green figure become enveloped by two other silvery figures as the Malfoys comforted each other. What had started as an awful day for Hermione, had ended as something so much worse for them, and it hardly concerned her in the end.
She caught Lucius' gaze, who winced apologetically and nodded, as Severus stepped towards them and it was clear that he belonged in their fold. Hermione and Jessica were outsiders in this grief, and yet, they were so uniquely involved with this family. Somehow, and Hermione could hardly believe it, but somehow this place and these people had become her temporary home and her interim family. She had Jessica to tether her to her old life, but she had the promise of a new and wonderful - albeit potentially insane - life with Severus. As well, she saw a glimmer of something she didn't quite understand with the Malfoys – but whatever it was felt permanent. Like they were all changed by their circumstance. Bonded by the experience. How odd it was that Hermione found herself here. And odder still she felt quite happy with her place in the world.
Severus came into view then, looking at her from narrowed eyes under his wrinkled forehead and furrowed brows.
"Are you alright?" he asked.
She wondered if she had glazed over in her rumination as his face became even more concerned.
"Yes," she said. "I'm fine. Are you?"
There had been a moment before. She would be forgiven for thinking that there was a trace, a glitter perhaps, of darkness in Severus.
"Yes."
The truth, she decided, and she relaxed as Severus placed his hand on the small of her back.
"Is Lucius?" she asked.
Lucius sat in his armchair, his hands shaking as he tilted his glass of whisky to his lips.
"He will be. He's in shock, I would guess."
"Why?" Hermione asked, and wondered as she did if it was an odd or a stupid question.
If he thought it was either, he did not show it.
"Of course. You wouldn't know… I should explain…"
His black eyes softened and he gestured to the sofa behind them, with a nod of his head.
:
S.
Severus sat back with an open body – one elbow on the arm of the sofa and the other extended to welcome Hermione. She kicked off her shoes, tucked her crossed-legs under her and patted a cushion in her lap. She sat sideways so that she could face him – not what he had anticipated – and he dropped his hand onto the cushion to take hers.
It was perhaps a little strange to see Hermione casual and dishevelled in Malfoy Manor, but she had a way of making herself at home wherever she was. It was as though she knew that she was not instantly likeable. That she was a little much for some people at first. That she sometimes needed time to grow on you. And so she might as well get comfortable for the stay.
Hermione's shoes thrown under the Malfoy's coffee table was not the strangest sight, however. What a picture they were. Draco was lounging on Narcissa's prized Persian rug, legs outstretched – resting his weight on one hand and sipping a glass of red wine with the other.
He's quite used to this sort of madness, Severus supposed. It's not the first time
Draco looked the picture of gratification in stark contrast to Jessica, who was not quite as familiar with Malfoy madness. Her face was severe as she rubbed Cressida on her shoulders. She was, perhaps, the only person in the room who did not bear her ill-will. Even Hermione, straight-laced and honourable, seemed hardly able to look at her. Lucius puffed on a cigar, with Narcissa sat beside him on the arm of his chair, stroking his hair with her needling fingers. She whispered words of comfort. Perhaps she knew what to say.
Is there anything you can say?
"Hermione, you know that there are many strange kinds of magic?"
She nodded, and then she said, "yes, go on," when he hadn't immediately continued.
She was eager to learn what it was she had not understood.
"Finally! I can teach the know-it-all something she doesn't already know," he said with a grin that he was pleased to find she mirrored.
"You were bound to find something eventually… Now, tell me… or I'll ask Lucius and deny you the pleasure."
He didn't want to find out if she was serious and so with a deep breath, he tried to find the words to explain darkness to pure sunshine.
"What you know about the Dark Arts is what you have learned in school and read in books," he said, "… or so I assume. You have no tangible experience with it… casting an unforgivable curse, for example?"
"No," she said, "not really."
"Well, at school you were taught that when you cast Avada Kedavra, you have to mean it," he said. "But what we didn't teach you was that before you take someone's life, there's a moment of clarity and insight. It is a type of magic that we don't really understand, but it essentially reminds you that what you are about to do will tear your soul in two—"
"Yes," she said, "I read something about it, years ago… it's like the thing that muggles understand as a conscience…"
"That's right."
Why did I think I could teach you anything new?
"So, you have to mean it. You have to be completely aware of the price you will pay and the toll it will take before you make your decision then make it anyway. For most witches and wizards, the act is not worth the price. It's why so few use it… even in a war. Because it changes you, to have even considered it. It's terrifying, Hermione… to know what you are capable of."
"You've felt it?"
"More times than I like to admit."
"Who? "Voldemort?" she asked, and then narrowed her eyes. "Oh… was it Harry?"
Severus felt a jolt of laughter that came as a surprise to everyone in the room. He shrunk into his shoulders and Hermione gave a smug little smile beside him. He moved towards her and kissed her forehead. He rested his lips just a moment, and then pulled back. She kissed him then, just once – her lips brushing his. They both knew that it was not the time and no matter how much it seemed like they were the only two people in the world, they were not even alone in the room. He caught sight of Cressida, who glared at him and he felt the faintest pang of guilt before, deciding fuck it and pulling himself off the sofa.
"Do you want to step outside for a minute?" he asked. "We have some time. It's Lucius and Narcissa's house and Tobin is their demon even more so than he is mine. They will decide what to do with Cressida and since Lucius won't be doing anything until he has knocked back at least another two glasses, I thought we could get some air?"
He spoke more quietly as he said, "which is a terribly long-winded way of saying I want to get you out of this room so I can kiss you..."
She shot to her feet with such enthusiasm that he could not help but leak his laughter.
"Next time lead with that," she said as she grabbed his hand.
He had never been in more absurd a situation. Just moments ago he had been quite ready to rip his soul apart, and now he was quite at peace. How ridiculous it was that he had ever thought that being in love with Hermione put him in danger. It was his love for her that kept him alive. It pulled him out of the darkness time and time again. He owed her his life ten times over. There wasn't a thing in the world he could give her to repay the debt.
:
H.
Sound filled the drawing room again, and so reluctantly, she and Severus joined everyone inside. The conversations seemed to be between Draco and Jessica, Jessica and Narcissa and Narcissa and Lucius – not one of them acknowledged Cressida, who was now at least sitting at the table instead of on the floor. She sipped at a glass of water and stared at the floor. Hermione couldn't help but feel sorry for her. She had looked as surprised, as horrified, as any of them that her father might be capable of such things.
"So… What now?" Hermione asked.
He let out an exasperated sigh and pulled himself tall.
"I think…" he said, and then turned to Lucius. "I have some questions for her, Luce. Don't you?"
Lucius swallowed and nodded, then dropped his glass to the table beside him.
"Yes. I can think of one or two."
Hermione's attention moved to Narcissa who had moved to the side of the room, as close to the doorway as she could linger without actually being outside.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I can't listen… I don't want to know…"
Lucius walked to where his wife stood, kissed the top of her head and pushed open the door to the patio.
"We've got this, Mum. It'll be alright," Draco said in a way that made him sound both a concerned child and a man in control.
He nodded and Jessica who followed Narcissa out onto the patio. Hermione watched Lucius cross the room to the dining table, pull out a chair and sit facing Cressida. Draco stood behind him, his hands behind him flat on the table as he leant back and Severus stood upright, his arms folded around his body.
"Did you know who I was when we met?"
"You know I didn't! I swear it!" she urged. "I just… I saw you at the pub and I liked what I saw…"
I don't want to listen to this either.
Hermione thought as she stepped backwards, and hoped that she would fade out of view. As she passed Lucius' velvet armchair, she caught sight of a bottle of Chardonnay, chilling in an ice bucket on top of the bar cart. She grabbed three large glasses from the sideboard, and then snatched the bottle. She stepped onto the patio, with raised eyebrows and the bottle outstretched. Jessica patted the seat next to her.
"Sit," she said, "and talk."
:
S.
"I just don't believe you," Lucius said, sharply. "I don't trust you."
Lucius is playing bad cop. I suppose that makes me…
He turned to Cressida, with what he hoped was a warm smile.
"He doesn't know you like I know you… so he doesn't have any reason to trust you. But I do. We just need to understand what happened… Could you tell us what you know?"
:
H.
"Tell me when," Hermione said, as she tipped the bottle into Narcissa's glass.
Narcissa made a display of tightened her lips and Jessica chuckled as the glass reached capacity.
Hermione slid the glass across the table.
"I could get you a bucket…"
"That's an idea," she said, with a buzz of laughter that fell flat on Hermione's ears.
"Are you okay, Narcissa?" she asked.
"Of course."
"Really?"
"Really?" Narcissa repeated. "No. But I don't want to think about it. I don't want to talk about it. I definitely don't want to hear his daughter talk about it."
"Did you know he had a daughter?" Jessica asked, so that Hermione didn't have to.
"No. She's what… early thirties? She must have been born around the time we broke up…"
Jessica pulled her chair closer to the table, so she could put her elbows on the glass and rest her head on her chin.
"He was unfaithful?"
"It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest."
Hermione sipped at her glass, glad that Jessica continued the conversation. It was a nice distraction from her own discomfort – superficial as it was in comparison.
"And you never saw him after that?" Jessica asked.
"Nope. He wrote to me as I told you… but no, I haven't seen him since. And to be quite honest, if I never see that man again it will be too soon. The last words I ever said to him were 'see you in hell', and I'll be damned if I see him any sooner."
She rapped her fingers across the glass and took a deep breath.
"You know… I don't know what I would have done without Bella. She took care of—"
Narcissa stopped, as her eyes flashed wide open and she looked guiltily at Hermione.
"I'm sorry," she said. "That was inconsiderate."
"It's fine."
Hermione took a moment to gather her thoughts. It was fine, she decided. Narcissa could hardly help who her sister was. And it was possible that Bellatrix was capable of kindness.
What was it that Sirius said? 'The world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters. We've all got both light and dark inside us.'
"Look. Not to put too fine a point on it," Hermione said, "but I hate her. I'm sorry if that upsets you. What she did to me… I'll never forgive her."
Narcissa blinked and then nodded.
"Of course…"
"But I understand that she's your sister. People can be two things. Just because she is the villain in my story, doesn't mean she can't be the hero of yours."
Just as the monster that threatened and terrified Narcissa could still be the man that tucked Cressida into bed at night and read her to sleep.
:
S.
Lucius rested all his weight against one hand on the table and rested his other hand on his waist.
"Then tell me… How do you explain the inconsistencies in what you told Severus about yourself?!"
"Like what?"
"Like where you went to school."
"Beauxbatons," she said. "I told you that—"
"You said you were a Slytherin," Severus said. "You had the snake brooch…"
"You can't have attended both," Lucius added.
"Well actually— " Cressida said. "I technically did attend both. I went to Hogwarts for a few weeks but my father pulled me out of classes without an explanation and I spent the rest of my education at Beauxbatons thereafter. And as for the brooch… I'm sorry, I was sorted into Slytherin… I just wanted to impress you."
Lucius paced as he spoke, his arms folded behind his back.
"Okay," he said with a sharp intake of breath. "What about the Weasley kid? How did you find him?"
"He found me," Cressida said with a shrug.
She was becoming less frightened and more confident. Soon she would refuse to answer any more questions.
"And before you ask! I don't know how he found me… but he did. He said I should use it to keep an eye on Severus."
"But the map follows Hermione…" he said.
Her cheeks reddened, and she looked down to her feet.
"He said that you'd be with her… and he was right, wasn't he?"
"So… what? That makes it okay?" he snapped, forgetting himself for a moment.
Lucius stepped forwards then.
"Ignore Severus. Go on."
"He said that he'd been using it for months to keep an eye on… her… and sometimes he'd follow her. He suggested I do the same."
Reason 394 to kill Ronald Weasley.
Lucius swung round to look at Severus.
"So it was Weasley who followed her in London then? I can't wait to tell Jessica she was right. She will be pleased."
"Hermione won't be."
Lucius gave a half-smile.
"No, I suppose not."
:
H.
Hermione sat on the patio chair with her feet up on the seat and one arm wrapped around her legs. Narcissa sat on the edge of hers with one leg slung gracefully across the other. Jessica leant back in her chair as though she hadn't a care in the world. She always had an incredible ability to keep her head and remain casual. It was something that Hermione greatly admired and envied terribly.
"I don't know how you're so calm," Narcissa said – it seemed she wasn't the only one who noticed.
When Jessica didn't answer, she realised that Narcissa was, in fact, talking to her.
"Me? Calm? Not in the slightest."
"You just seem so together… so collected. It must be difficult to be out here when Severus is in there with her."
Hermione's concern must have been written on her face as clear as day.
"Oh, no. You have absolutely nothing to worry about," Narcissa said. "Severus has his faults but he is loyal to a fault. And more to the point, he is yours unquestionably. I just meant that your relationship is relatively new but you seem so at ease with one another. It's like you understand each other."
Narcissa swilled the wine in her glass.
"Earlier, you saw it too, didn't you? The shadow on his face... he was thinking something dark. Then you took his hand, and in seconds, he's happy. I've never seen anything like it. You have a way with him. It's quite remarkable really."
:
S.
"The owl, Severus!" Lucius said, sharply. "All the letters are from the same bird. His threats and her howler."
Lucius folded his arms as he turned to face Cressida and tapped his foot as if to say 'gotcha!'
"I saw Severus with… her on the map and I was upset, so I went to see a friend hoping that she could cheer me up, but she'd just gotten engaged and so yeah…" she said, with a prickle in her voice. "I was upset."
"And your father didn't mention at any point that the man you were dating was someone he knew?"
"I didn't tell him about the relationship until it was over. I didn't think he'd approve given that there's a significant age difference and I didn't want to worry him until it was serious…"
Severus felt his stomach leap into his armpits.
"So you admit it wasn't serious!?" he said, unable to hide the relief on his face.
Her face was thunderous as she stared at him.
"Of course I knew you weren't serious about me!" Cressida sniped. "Did you ever once say or do or even suggest anything to the contrary? Oh, I knew perfectly well that you didn't feel the same way as I did."
She stood up and kicked the chair behind her under the table. Her voice came harsh and deliberate.
"I might be a little crazy, maybe I'm fucking deluded… but I'm not stupid! I just hoped…"
She sighed and he recognised the regret in her eyes. Damn it, if he didn't have enough regrets of his own.
"I just hoped that you might grow to feel something for me…" she said, "and so when you ended things, I guess I didn't take it so well."
"Been there," Severus said, surprising himself.
"I'm sorry," she said, "I was out of order. But I don't have to stand here and take this, you know? And given that you're clearly not going to kill me… if you don't mind… I think I'll be going."
Lucius moved quickly to where she stood.
"You're right. I'm not going to kill you. I won't lay a finger on you. It's not you I want."
"You really think I'm going to tell you where to find him?"
"No," she said, as Lucius pulled his wand again from his pocket. "I think you're going to take me to him."
:
H.
Jessica picked up the wine glasses and Narcissa flicked her wand so that the empty bottle swept into the air and dropped into her hand. She dropped it into the bin, as Hermione held the patio doors open for them both. She followed in behind them and then jutted to a halt, when she realised that both Jessica and Narcissa had stopped dead in their tracks.
"What the hell?" Jessica said.
Hermione scanned the room but there was nobody to be seen.
"Lucius!?" Narcissa called.
Jessica rounded the corner to the kitchen and Hermione heard her calling Draco's name throughout the house. Hermione didn't move.
"They're not here?"
Hermione let out a derisive laugh as she realised how stupid she had been to leave them unattended in the first place.
"Remember what Severus said? 'You don't want to hurt her? And 'she's not worth it?"
"Oh fuck," Jessica said. "I'm going to kill you, Draco Malfoy."
"Not if I kill him first," Narcissa said.
:
S.
Cressida reluctantly pointed to the house at the end of the street. As they approached they saw the little detached cottage with a thatched roof, illuminated in the light of a street lamp. It should have been quaint, but it wasn't. It was a decrepit-looking place, with crumbling walls and a faint stink of stagnant water, but the garden was well-tended to.
"Cressida. You stay here," Lucius said. "I only want to talk."
"Not a chance. I don't trust you."
Severus was unsure if she meant 'you', Lucius, or 'you', both of them, and he could hardly blame her. Lucius opened the gate and he and Cressida followed, but as he advanced up the path to the door, he stopped.
"Severus, you always think ten moves ahead," he said. "Tell me what your plan is."
"I don't have one."
Not strictly speaking true. My plan is to keep you alive and out of Azkaban.
"I followed you here", Severus said, putting his hand on his friend's shoulder. "This is your game of chess. What is your strategy?"
Lucius smirked.
"You know I'm more of an act-first, think-later kind of man… I tend to make a move and deal with the consequences."
Severus clapped his hand again on Lucius' shoulder.
"Then I guess you'd better make a move then."
"… And if it's the wrong move?"
"Then we deal with the consequences," Severus said, with more confidence than he felt. "Just… err— try not get us killed, okay?"
Lucius nodded as he turned to Cressida, who, with a flick of her wand, unlocked the latch. Lucius took a deep breath, swallowed, then pushed open the door.
AN: Thanks for being patient with me while I upload sporadically and thank you to everyone who has put up with me so far, haha! But never fear because we're almost at the end. One or two chapters left. I haven't decided whether to post two shorter chapters, or one long one. What do you think?
Hope you're having a great day! - K xxx