ONE.
Draco's lungs burned badly enough so that he wished he hadn't forgone Quidditch for the past few weeks in favor of the library. At least Ron's loose trousers meant he could run faster than most of the others; he was gaining on his professor and the Death Eaters, and would soon overtake them.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Ron reaching Harry, helping him put out the flames that had risen to engulf Hagrid's hut. Before him, he could see Snape, running – and who knew the wizard could cover ground so quickly?
They ran until Draco's lungs felt like they were on fire and he could run no more. Then, he reached out and grabbed a handful of robe at Snape's waist.
"I! can't!" he panted, "run! anymore!"
Snape did a double-take, as though he had only just realized Draco was behind him. Then he cuffed him soundly across the temple. "I thought I told you to run twenty minutes ago, you foolish boy! You should be at Spinner's End by now!"
Draco stumbled away from him and put both hands atop his knees, leaning forward to even his breathing – they were well into the woods, now, and there was little chance that anyone would be able to track them through the Forbidden Forest. They were also alone: now Draco remembered the other Death Eaters wheezing, stumbling, falling behind. "I… don't remember… you saying that," he managed.
Snape's eyes flickered. "I see. So the sight of Dumbledore falling was a bit… traumatic, was it?"
Draco swallowed, feeling a prickling behind his eyes.
"Not so easy as it looks?"
There was something inherently nasty – and satisfied – in Snape's tone, a bite that Draco hadn't heard in a long time, but one that provoked a conditioned response: he came to attention, examining his professor's countenance for nuance before crafting his reply.
"I'm sorry," Draco finally replied. "This must be very… difficult. For you." He put on his best sympathetic smile. Five points to Slytherin, he thought to himself. He would be the first to admit he was still learning how to comfort others – but at least he could be taught.
Snape's expression, however, had frozen. Slowly, he brought his wand to bear on the blond boy. "Don't," he said, infusing the word with such venom that Draco actually stumbled back another step. "I don't know what game you're playing, but whatever it is… for your safety and for my own… you must stop." The wand hand trembled, Draco saw, and Snape looked more furious than ever.
Draco raised both hands in careful surrender, realizing it was probably safest to agree, and move on. "Yes, Professor. Where are we headed?"
The rapid agreement seemed to calm the Professor. "You are headed to a place where hopefully, the Dark Lord will not reach you."
Draco's breath caught. If Voldemort had managed to return again, that explained a lot: Dumbledore's death, for one, and Snape's tight-lipped horror, beyond even the usual measure of grief, for another.
"We don't have the time for shock," Snape snapped. "Now come along, or be left behind." He reached out and took hold of Draco's arm.
Draco felt the sickening lurch of a poorly-performed side-along, and they were standing on a dark, abandoned street corner in a dark, dismal Muggle neighborhood. Draco stumbled along behind Snape, who still had a firm hold of his upper arm, as though he were a prisoner, or a child who didn't know any better than to wander off.
"Where are we?" he whispered, conscious of the tension in the man, the rigidity of the near-painful grip on his arm.
"Spinner's End," Snape replied. "I come here when all else fails…" They were apparently headed towards a small, knock-down cottage, by far the most sagging and dismal of the sagging, dismal lot.
Inside was only marginally less dank than outside. The carpets needed beating, choked with filth and grime; the curtains obviously had not been washed or even moved in months, as they were covered in a muffling layer of dust. The only vaguely welcoming aspect of the small living area was a sofa, and the hundreds of shelved and unshelved books that littered the area, making it slightly more homey than a tomb.
Draco was appalled. "Is this your house?" he demanded. He thought Professor Snape would take better care of his properties than the shambles before him. He would have thought that Lupin, in any case, would make sure of it.
Professor Snape ignored him, moving to the kitchen area and opening the cupboards – the only clean part of the entire house, Draco realized, and for good reason. Rather than foodstuffs, they were packed with a seemingly endless supply of potions and potions-ingredients.
And tea.
Draco followed the dark-haired man into the alcove and rustled around for a kettle, hoping some black tea would help rouse Snape. Now that the running was over, Severus moved with the shuffling gait and dull eyes of a newly-raised Inferi.
Snape withdrew a small bottle from the cupboards, nodding to himself, though leagues away from his usual sharp attention. He placed a tumblerful of liquid at the bottom of one teacup, then paused; after a moment's reflection, he added slightly less to the second. Draco wasn't certain Snape could be trusted in his current frame of mind, so he cast a surreptitious Aurelius toxicum charm over both cups.
Whatever the Professor intended to dose them with appeared to be benign.
"Recall, if it is within your capabilities, that to harm you would mean the end of me," Snape croaked. "It is Erusco Philtre."
Draco gazed up at him from out of the corner of his eye as Severus placed the kettle on the hob. "We could probably both use it."
Snape shot him another glare, but there was a certain degree of earnest puzzlement in his dark gaze, this time.
The tea whistle sounded, and Snape poured. Then they sat in the living room, and sipped, silently. What else did one do, in the middle of the dingiest, filthiest hovel to call one's own, Draco wondered, having fled one's workplace in the night, having seen one's mentor murdered? What else but sip tea and consider what to do, next?
Draco supposed his professor would talk to him, would start thinking aloud, once the tea was finished and the Erusco began to take effect. Instead, Snape let the light of his Lumos slowly die, swathing the little house at Spinner's End in darkness; which Draco had to admit was only kind to both the old place and its owner. However, it made it impossible to make out the older wizard's eyes, to determine whether the man was thinking of their next move, or merely staring off into the black.
"Professor Snape," he chanced, lighting his own Lumos. "Why have we come here?"
The light was sudden enough that Draco was able to catch the edge of the older wizard's flinch as he tumbled roughly free of his thoughts. "We will not linger long," Snape replied, but that was no answer. "Bellatrix knows of this place, by tomorrow she will have thought of it. As it is, the Dark Lord may think we have fallen, or been captured; which gives us a brief measure of time. Time enough to sleep, to plan, before we move."
"Are we going after the Death Eaters?" Draco choked. He wanted to wound the men who had hurt Snape, and destroy those who'd damaged Harry – but he knew he was no fighter, antics on his broom aside.
"I will be following them; you will make a brief report to the Dark Lord –"
Draco went white and lost his sense of balance, slumping a bit sideways into the couch –
"– and retreat to Hogwarts, which is still the safest bastion of the Wizarding World. I have made an Unbreakable Vow to protect you, and protect you I will, regardless of your blind desire for glory. You will not be safe amidst that nest of vipers."
"If you've made an Unbreakable Vow –" Draco wondered to whom before making the logical leap and thinking my mother in an unexpected starburst of warmth – "then placing me in reach of Him would be the end of us both!"
"You may yet survive to see glory, since you would continue to be useful to him stationed at Hogwarts. Besides which, he may not yet have discovered who dealt the killing blow. If fate is with us, you will be out of his reach before he becomes aware."
Draco blew out a rough breath; he had cast the Killing Curse from behind. It was entirely possible that this incarnation of Voldemort had never learned who had actually murdered him, especially considering how few Death Eaters had escaped the scene. "And what about you? You can't mean to say you're going back to the Death Eaters on your own."
"Mister Malfoy," Professor Snape interjected, sounding for a moment like himself – tired, bitter, but half-amused – "that is only as it has always been. Unless you are suggesting that you yourself accompany me? After spending the year denying my offers of aid, surely you do not believe I should turn to you?"
"I accepted your help eventually, didn't I?" Draco shot back, remembering that horrific time in the Hospital Wing, when his professor had finally discovered he was not sleeping, that Harry's dreams of Voldemort had bled to him. It was true he'd kept it secret for a long time, but he had needed and been grateful for Severus's help, when it came. "Besides, no matter what I said to you at first, you know I just wanted out…"
"Well, you're out of it now," Snape said with an air of finality.
Which again brought forth the image of a vigilante Snape striking forth on his own, potentially dying in the process. Allies, we need allies. "When I go back to Hogwarts and talk to the others, they'll understand why you had to run –"
The strangest expression stole over Snape's features – longing, Draco realized after a moment's study, desire so sharp it cut. When the older man's voice emerged, it was so hoarse with emotion it sounded like the cawing of a crow.
"I can never return," he rasped. "The Headmaster of Hogwarts and the leader of the Order of the Phoenix is dead, I've killed him."
For a brief, horror-struck moment, Draco's thoughts stilled completely. But then, after the events of the previous year, little could surprise him for very long. Right, then. So there has to be a reason. There's a good reason. He – attempted to cast Imperio on Snape, without his permission this time, or he Obliviated Harry…
Actually, that could explain why Harry hadn't trusted Snape, why he'd run at Snape –
"Then I know it had to be done," Draco finally said, quiet with conviction. "And they'll know it too – Lupin, the Order. You have to trust them to know that, Professor…"
Severus paused. And here Draco couldn't help but think of him that way, as Severus, because he was sitting by Draco with a cooling cup of tea in his hands, hunched and miserable. His hands, Draco now saw, gripped the teacup so firmly they whitened. Draco had the startling and rather Gryffindorish impulse to kneel at his feet, to plead: trust me, please trust me, just to remove that lost, bewildered expression from his Professor's features.
But he had forfeited the right to Severus's trust. He could only hope the Professor would place his faith in those more deserving – Professor Lupin, Harry, the Weasleys – and accompany Draco back to Hogwarts.
Snape's eyes lifted, slowly. "Tomorrow, Mister Malfoy, we shall be very busy indeed. We shall require an early start."
"Yes, sir." Draco's mother had trained him well enough to recognize a polite dismissal when he heard one, even if he didn't like it. He stood from the tatty couch and stretched.
"There's a bedroom you may use up the stairs, immediately to your right," Snape added. His eyes did not follow Draco as the younger wizard made his way up the steps.
Draco opened a plywood door and cast his eyes about the room. It was, apparently, a small bedroom, boasting a bed with a cast-iron frame and a thin, sagging mattress; a small, oval mirror hung on the wall, cracking with age or spent magic. A threadbare, rectangular rug was spread out before the bed, and a tall dresser, much-gouged and abused, sat against the wall. Everything was filthy, of course; luckily, Draco knew two straightening charms from Ron and Hermione respectively, and was able to tidy the mattress, render it free of dust and stains, though he had to Nox his wand to perform the additional charms. He even managed the curtains, which he suspected would have kept him awake sneezing.
A gentle prod around the magic of the place showed that it had been spelled Unplottable, so that no owls could come or go, and Snape had apparently warded his door and window to prevent entry or exit. Though Draco felt a brief stab of suspicion, he suspected he would have done the same in Snape's position. Still, he had to let Ron know that he and the Professor were alive.
He shucked Ron's old corduroys and snuggled under the covers, then waited, napping fitfully until his wand informed him it was four in the morning. Then, he closed his eyes and pictured Hermione's tear-streaked cheeks, the empty Slytherin dormitories, the feel of her in his arms, his own voice reassuring her: …remember when we burned the body? Remember that, Hermione? We ground the bones to dust, we scattered them. There's nothing to come back to, do you understand? He can't come back. And realizing that himself, that the Dark Lord could never return, the certainty lighting him from the inside…
"Expecto patronum!" he whispered. A silvery light erupted from his wand. "I have a message," he told the small animal that appeared, "for Ronald Weasley, at Hogwarts Castle…"
Loud pounding at the door woke Draco with a jolt, had him scrambling for Ron's corduroys and his belt. "Coming!" he shouted, but then Snape was through the door, looking dark and commanding and every bit as exhausted as he had the night before.
"Take these," he ordered, shoving a small bundle at Draco. It gave a rich series of clinks and chimes at the rough treatment.
"Potions?"
"We do not know what we may need by the time our visit with the Dark Lord is through."
Draco poked at a corner of the tied cloth; a bottle of Skele-grow gleamed at him coldly from its dark confines.
"And I should hope I do not need to order you to Transfigure something more suitable to wear to an audience with the Dark Lord."
"I'm pretty bad at Transfigurations, McGonagall never liked me."
Snape's beetle-black eyes flashed. "You will soon discover how little the Dark Lord enjoys excuses. I have never had much of a taste for them, myself." Still, he withdrew his wand and cast.
The brown corduroys tightened to a much finer weave, then bled forest before fading to a moss-like grey-green; silver buttons snaked across his waist. Hermione's shirt fanned out into ruffles around his throat and wrists as silver snakes writhed in shining thread-of-silver along the collar. Draco tucked it in, then charmed his teeth clean and his hair neat.
"You know that much, at any rate," Snape commented, and it was hard to tell from his flat tone whether that was compliment or criticism. "Come. We must go, or we will be suspected of disobeying His wishes." Snape grasped Draco's upper arm and waved his wand and the small house was gone.
Draco recognized the clearing in which they appeared; he knew it instantly. It was his standard Apparition point for the Manor when he did not wish to be seen. Either Draco had told Snape about this spot at some point, or their sense of strategy was even more similar than he had ever suspected.
Severus fell to an ominous silence, and Draco was too unsettled to fill the air with chatter. I trust Snape. I trust him to protect me. He swallowed past the doubt and the miasma of disloyalty that followed. But he couldn't help reliving his first meeting with the Dark Lord, where he had called out for help, and no-one had answered.
Just then they broke free of the trees, giving Draco his first unobscured look at the large manor on the hill, which cut short his racing thoughts. The rose garden, normally in full bloom this time of year, was a disaster of trampled ground and torn petals. One of the windows in the lower storeys had been smashed out from the inside; no effort had been made to patch or Reparo the gaping hole. His great-grandmother Celena's burgundy damask curtains fluttered through the damp, filthy from dirt and rain, the familiar tainted with the sinister.
He only realized he had halted when Severus regained possession of his left arm, the harsh press of fingertips a paradox of comfort and control. He spared a moment to wonder if the other man's fingerprints would be permanently bruised into his flesh – a mark of angry possession to rival the Dark Lord's.
Snape's steadying grip was too reassuring to shake off, so Draco swallowed past his nausea and continued straight to the Manor gates, wrought iron twice as tall as he. As they approached, Snape reached to tug his left sleeve down to the elbow, as if to show the Gate the Dark Mark curled around his forearm.
Draco's breath hitched, and he half-turned away to scrabble at his own sleeve in horror. The Mark pulsed there, underneath Hermione's transfigured tunic, dark and cold to the touch.
It'd been gone. He knew it had. He could close his eyes and picture the unblemished skin, ruddy with the darkest tan a Malfoy could manage, freckled up and whole. Draco closed his eyes and pressed his right hand over the phantom Mark, but his hand could not warm the abused flesh. Instead, an icy prickle crept up his right arm with such insidiousness that he flinched back.
Draco looked up to meet Snape's gaze. The older wizard's expression was smooth, unreadable – he appeared completely recovered from his strange behaviour of the evening before. Draco lifted his left arm without taking his regard from the other man. The echoed gesture caused the gates to swing open, slow and smooth.
As Draco moved up through the small, winding lane to the front doors of the Manor, his mind darted from idea to idea, attempting to escape the pit he saw yawning beneath them. Both he and Severus had regained their Marks, but he supposed that made a terrible sort of sense: Fawkes had only been capable of removing them once Voldemort was well and truly gone. Could it be that they had re-emerged at the Dark Lord's return?
That's not quite right, though, and of course it wasn't. If Voldemort had been really and truly gone in the first place – not sort of dead, or somewhat dead, or mostly dead, but truly gone – then he could not have come back, save as an ineffectual and incorporeal ghost. And Fawkes's ability to heal their Marks proved he was completely gone.
Had been gone.
And were now back, which completed that paradox nicely.
Draco's head hurt. He wanted Ron to bounce ideas off of, or Hermione. Ron's intuitive sense and Hermione's calm logic would be more than welcome right now. He felt as though he were chasing his metaphorical tail.
Well – Snape's already figured it out. He didn't even seem surprised the Mark was back – he expected it, somehow he knew. And maybe if I could phrase it just right, I could ask…
But something held him back, a bit of instinctive Ron-sense pressing his lips together. It's not just that he expected it, he finally decided after dissecting his impressions, he didn't expect me to be surprised, either.
By then they'd reached the door; Draco stood still and pale as death when the dark-painted door swung open to admit them.
Stepping beyond into Malfoy Manor was like falling back in time. The white marble of the entryway gleamed, cool and pristine, threaded through with veins of dark grey. Ahead and to his right, the familiar mahogany staircase wound sinuously upwards in the direction of his rooms. A hallway intersected the foyer, leading both to the left and right. A dozen, a hundred memories clamoured for his attention; ghostly Dracos, ages two, five, ten, twelve, ran through his mental landscape, padding across the smooth marble in stocking-feet – sometimes accompanied by his father, cool, impassive, strong; his mother, elegant, beautiful, composed. And one memory always, always overshadowed them all: he and his mother in the sitting room at the very dawn of their grief for Lucius; and then Bellatrix sweeping through the door like a gay hurricane, announcing that Draco should prepare himself to take his father's place, because he would be earning his Mark that very night. The first time he'd seen Voldemort, the first time he'd truly understood why so many fought him.
Trying to fight the man, the monster, himself. Calling for help when that failed.
Receiving no answer.
He looked up to find Severus staring with one brow raised; he ducked his head to avoid the impression of dismay, if it was not already far too late. A skittering sounded in the hallway and Draco looked up, his mental image of his mother shattering at the sight before him.
He had never seen his mother so thin, or so haggard; the difference in conception and reality was so pronounced that he gasped, then hitched his breath again as her thin arms rose to grip him almost painfully.
"Draco. Draco," she whispered, her face pressed to his neck, her fingers clenching and unclenching spasmodically at his back. She drew back only for a breath, dull blue eyes searching, scanning his features as if to verify that he was indeed who he appeared. Then she reached out and pressed him to her again with one arm, the other snagging Severus, who issued a half-strangled noise at the contact, then pressed a careful hand to Narcissa's shoulder.
In a group hug with Snape and his mum was not how he would have pictured his homecoming. If he was startled at Snape's possessive touch, he was astounded by his mother's – his mother, whose cool and unflappable grace he had always admired.
"Thank you," Narcissa breathed, her words a benediction as she pressed Severus and Draco to herself. "Thank you, thank you – without you, Severus –" She broke off into choking sobs.
Draco could feel Snape's entire body stiffen, and for a moment he thought the older wizard would shove them both away with all of his strength. But then, he shuddered, and issued a sound much like Narcissa herself had; and Draco felt a hand press carefully, tentatively, between his shoulderblades. He closed his eyes around the sudden storm of emotion, protective and covetous and fiercely glad. And he came to realize that he trusted Severus to try to save him from Voldemort, but was no longer certain he could; that some time last night Professor Severus Snape had diminished to become an ordinary man, muddling through disaster just as Draco was – and that made him feel uncertain but also less alone, so he lifted one arm to press a hand to Severus's back in turn.
But that seemed to break whatever spell of peace and harmony had so briefly clouded the man's judgment. Severus stiffened so badly that Draco feared he would strain something, and his mother lifted her chin and wiped at her eyes. "You are well," she said; and though she said it with an iron core of conviction threaded through her voice, her eyes flicked up and then down his body again.
"Yes," Draco said, unable to check the warmth that colored his voice. "Yes, I'm fine. Professor Snape has taken great pains." Which seemed to be the thing to say, though Draco somehow had the feeling he didn't know the half of it, and never would.
Narcissa's cool smile widened into genuine pleasure, and Draco decided his initial shock was perhaps a bit melodramatic. It was true Narcissa appeared slight, but there was a healthy flush to her cheeks, and her hair was piled atop her head attractively; her dress looked well on her. "Did he?" Her blue eyes flickered up and caught Severus's, sharing her gratitude with him again.
Draco looked up at his professor to catch his professor's response, then blinked at the older man's darting eyes and flushed cheeks. His own eyes flickered from his mother, to Snape, and then back again, with deepening suspicion. "Yesss," Draco drawled, frowning up at the dark-haired wizard.
Narcissa broke her staring contest with Severus and flashed another sweet smile at them both. "You must be starving. Tippy can make us some sandwiches; and there is a large pot of soup at all times, these days – due to our constant influx of… guests."
Draco allowed his mother to shoo him towards the kitchens, but Snape was less easily herded. When Draco looked over his shoulder, the other man was still standing in the foyer, hands curled up and strangely empty-looking, a dark man in a sea of white.
"Narcissa," he said flatly, "are you certain He is gone?"
She paled for a breath, but then dipped her head to laugh. "I discovered he was looking for a certain necklace, of great sentimental value to him." She offered them a devious smile. "I told him I recalled seeing it in one of the Black manses during my childhood. He should be occupied until tomorrow at the very least." When Severus quirked an eyebrow, her chin lifted. "If you wish to speak to Him directly, I am certain I can firecall him back."
Severus nodded, but his voice was carefully neutral as he replied. "I am sure a day's respite would do us no harm, Narcissa." And he removed his shoes and followed the two towards the kitchens.
Draco sat at the small rosewood table they used for informal dining and stared at Snape's stocking-feet. As he watched, Severus's toes wiggled, happy to be free of his heavy boots in the summer heat.
"Expecting hooves?" Snape queried.
Draco's eyes snapped up to the dark-haired man's face. "Don't be ridiculous." He accepted the glass of milk that Tippy handed him with a nod. "Fins," he muttered around his first sip.
Snape snorted, just as Draco had intended he should.
Narcissa returned with soup and sandwiches. Though Tippy had likely procured them, Draco couldn't help but find it touching that Narcissa wished to serve them herself.
She chattered idly about immaterial things as the sandwiches slowly disappeared: rose aphids, and her trip to the milliner's, and Impedicanta, a curse she and Andromeda had invented one long, too-quiet summer when she was Draco's age. The story earned a laugh from Draco and an expressive eye-roll from Snape as she described the way that no-one had been able to counter the new jinx, how all of her enemies and not a few of her friends had been left immobile and singing.
Then the meal was over, and they sat for a full minute, silent; Narcissa twisted her skirts in both hands; Draco examined his fingernails. When even Snape started to look distinctly uncomfortable, Draco realized they wished to talk alone. He stood.
Narcissa sent a startled look Draco's way, then winced. "I am afraid Greyback took your rooms the very first time he was here. Claimed it was too late to go home… invited himself. Your things are rather –" She paused, composed herself. "Perhaps the Blue Room, on the third floor?"
Catching sight of his mother's plain distress, Draco interrupted. "Mother," he interrupted her, catching both of her cold hands between his. "Mother, it's all right. I'd stay in the cellar or the northwest wing. I'm home."
Narcissa's lashes blinked rapidly before wide blue eyes. "You are right, of course," she replied, back straightening and offering a brave smile. "We did not – I did not – hope to ask for more than that. And now you are both… here." Her lips wobbled again as she gestured, somehow including Severus with her hands. "In one piece." She executed the now-familiar sweep of her eyes over Draco's form, cataloguing limbs intact. "Well, then. The Blue Room. Pliny will see you there."
"No need; I know the way." Draco pushed rapidly up the stairs, then sidled back down, his back pressed to the Manor's creamy wallpaper, shot with silver-and-gold. He wasn't certain who Severus thought he was dealing with – perhaps he'd become too used to those biddable Gryffindors – but there was no way he was missing out on any important conversation between Severus and his mother, especially if it concerned him.
"…noted any difference in your son?" Severus inquired in a low, steady voice.
"But of course he is different," Narcissa breathed, the very picture of calm reassurance. "He has seen the thestrals."
Draco suppressed a snort at this extremely delicate, outdated phrase.
"And perhaps his task has altered the romantic light in which he viewed service to our Lord," the Potions Master added with a grimace. "Very well; you know him better than I."
A loud yawn had Narcissa apologizing graciously and calling Pliny to lead Severus up to the Green Room.
Draco fled up to the Blue Room and cautiously, soundlessly, joined the door to its frame; but no sooner than he had paced one, full circuit across the floor, mind whirring with unanswered questions, had the door flown open to reveal Severus Snape, wand aloft:
"Immobilus! Incarcerus! Expelliarmus! Silencio Perispherico!"
Draco cursed as he flew into a Baroque mahogany chair and ropes lashed across his torso, his wand seeming to stay behind, slapping into Snape's waiting palm. "What are you doing?" he demanded, then coughed in surprise and pain as Severus's own wand stabbed into the tender hollow just above his clavicle. The fact that he could not even flinch away made it ache all the more.
"Do you think I am a fool? Did you suppose I wouldn't notice?"
Severus's eyes were dark and wild; spittle flew from his mouth as he shouted. The sudden return of the madman from the evening before struck Draco like a blow. You've been pretending to be all right, he thought, hurt and confused. As if Mother and I were the enemy from which to hide your weaknesses.
I'm not here to betray you, he tried, but his lips refused to move; and besides, the other man was pacing around through the Blue Room, as though he were hunting for a specific object.
"No matter. Stay there," Severus ordered with a hint of dark humour.
Draco tried to order his body to wriggle, attempted to flex the heart of his magic and break through the double-layer of spells, but Snape was back long before he could make an honest attempt, carrying a bottle of crystal-clear, infuriatingly familiar potion. The dark-haired man forced Draco's mouth open with potions-stained fingers and removed the dropper from its bottle with exaggerated care.
Draco did not even have the satisfaction of struggling. Instead, he glared angrily at the other man from above a hinged-open jaw as Severus pinched his fingers together to squeeze one… two… threefourfive drops of potion onto his tongue.
Don't panic; don't panic, Draco ordered, but of course he was panicking. Snape's shaking hand had overdosed him by an order of magnitude. He was frantically tracing mental Potions notes, attempting to recall the effects of Veritaserum poisoning when the potion took hold.
A curious lassitude overcame him first, and it seemed like his worries and fears unspooled, leaving him rudderless. Then the room sharpened, as though he were watching it through a bright crystal microscope that made it grow present and vivid. And, slowly at first, the morning gained that same remarkable clarity, and then the flight of the evening before; and then the Veil spell and the month spent creating it, and Voldemort's attack on Hogwarts, and his own dizzying, expanding friendship with Harry, in reverse; and his first meeting with Voldemort and on until the impressions were racing past him with impossible speed.
He coughed again – no wonder people flinched and trembled when they were administered Veritaserum, if everyone's experience was like his.
He looked up at Severus and blinked, the details resolving so plainly he wondered how he could have missed them, before:
Severus was nearly a stone lighter than he'd been when drinking their newly-developed Potion, his skin several shades paler. They'd all been out in the hills of Scotland for days collecting important Potions ingredients that simply had to be collected on this day or that; or, in one case, had to be local to anchor the portal best. This man's hair was also four-point-two-five centimeters longer than it had been two days ago.
"Who are you?"
For a moment, Draco thought the question had emerged from his own lips, but then the room before him fizzled, popped and resolved into Snape leaning over him and looking expectant.
What? But, "Draco Lucius Malfoy," he replied without any intention of answering so directly. He realized that Severus must have lifted the Impedimenta while he was still reeling from the initial effects of the Veritaserum, because he was slumped slightly forward, in a position so relaxed that he likely could never have managed it without chemical aid.
"How long has that been your name?"
That was a pretty clever way of seeing if – "…all my life," he answered.
Severus appeared stymied for a moment; but then he wandered off again. Perhaps he had decided the potion hadn't had time to work, or was faulty.
"You shouldn't administer any more Veritaserum," Draco called after him, the faint edge of panic swimming up at this last idea, and Severus paused with one hand on the doorframe. "The side-effects include nerve damage and permanent memory loss."
The wizard turned. "Who told you that?"
"You did," Draco replied. "On three separate occasions, if you count the exam you gave in fifth-year. Also, my father, once."
Severus returned to his side. "Are you or are you not the Draco Lucius Malfoy who stood with me atop the Astronomy Tower last night?"
"I don't believe I am."
There was a moment of quiet while Severus lowered his head and clenched his fists. Then he nodded, once, sharply. "Where were you last night if not accomplishing the task you had been given?"
"I was accomplishing the task I had been given. I was in the Potions classroom chopping ashwagandha."
"Elaborate."
Apparently, Veritaserum could work with such a vague query, because Draco found himself expounding on Arithmetical and Potions theory for a solid one minute and thirty-nine-point-eight seconds before Severus cut him off.
"Repeat your previous sentence?"
" 'Hermione says that Bezhinghast's theory of caudular bases is self-contradicting'," Draco parroted.
"Hermione says," Snape repeated, venom lacing his voice. "Are you referring to Miss Granger?"
"Yes. There are no other Hermiones I know. Nor books I've read that were written by any Hermiones –"
"Am I to understand that you and Miss Granger have been working on a Unified Theory of Reality-Transversal… together?" Snape bit off.
"Yes," Draco replied. He hadn't thought of it that way before, but of course that was the case.
"And that's how you got here," Snape said, releasing a huge puff of air.
"Yes," Draco said, the response leaving him with his own huff of surprised realization.
Severus strode to the window that looked out over the ruined rose gardens, hands clasped behind his back, shoulders rolled forward. "Where is Draco?"
"The other Draco Malfoy was running through the Hogwarts front entrance the last I saw of him. We didn't recognize him at the time; it was dark, and he was quick. But he had Malfoy hair."
"You said 'we'. Who else accompanied you?"
"Ron."
"Ronald Weasley." There was a faint drip of horror to Severus's voice, now.
"I don't know any other Rons," Draco explained.
"I assume that in your strange and sordid little universe, Hermione Granger is a pureblood of high standing and Ronald Weasley is a Slytherin," he spat derisively; and even though Draco's higher faculties could tell that this had been a rhetorical statement rather than a proper question, he could not seem to stop answering anyway.
"Ron was Sorted to Hufflepuff, but the Hat willfully mis-Sorted him to Gryffindor," he babbled. "Hermione Granger is a Mu – a Mu –" He stopped, laughed. "I still can't say it, so – Muggleborn."
"Is there a reason for your reticence? Veritaserum should destroy all barriers."
Draco blinked. "Not stronger compulsions. Harry ordered me not to."
There was a dangerous quiet, and Severus strode back to crouch before Draco's chair. "Potter. Did. What?"
A/N: Well, the sequel was a long time coming, I know. I altered the end of SoS to state that the story was continued here, but it's been so long for most of you that I'm no longer sure you recall the original story! As I've said elsewhere, I've been infected by NaNoWriMo in order to try to finish stories I've been working on for a long time. This one is about 70 pp. right now, and will likely be twice or three times that once it's done.
Reviews help me think, help me plan, and help me write more! Thanks for your support as I push through these last few days. :)
-K