Salvation

Chapter 1

“Come in, come in.” Albus Dumbledore waved his visitor to a seat.

“Thank you for agreeing to see me, Headmaster,” said Snape as he adjusted his robes and sat. “It is a matter of some worry to me – “

“I know you will do the best for us, and for them, that you can.”

Snape narrowed his eyes. This was not the first time that Dumbledore had seemingly read his mind. Which he proceeded to do again.

“Severus, it’s hardly a surprise. Now that he has regained his strength, Voldemort is gathering his forces; naturally he wants to add new…blood.”

“They are children.”

“They are wizards.”

“They are young and too easily influenced,” snapped the Potions master.

“Then you must be the one to influence them. It is a great responsibility, I know. But have you never wondered why I insisted that you remain head of Slytherin?”

A harsh laugh. “I imagined it was a point of pride. Not giving in to the Death Eaters who could not stomach a turncoat teaching their children…” His eyes suddenly blazed. “I see. So this is another task in the service of the Order.”

“Precisely. Voldemort can not accept them until they are of age.”

“Those who tread in their parents’ footsteps are unlikely to choose any other path.”

“But some of them are salvageable,” said Dumbledore to him, his eyes fixed on the other man’s.

And in the silence that followed, before Snape abruptly pushed his chair away from the desk and swept to the door, he didn’t need to be able to read minds to know what Dumbledore was thinking. He could see it in the wise eyes that regarded him from behind half-moon glasses, in the lines of worry and concern on the forehead of the older man, in the slight smile on those ancient lips.

After all, you were.

He observed his seventh-year’s Potions classes even more closely than usual during the next week, making notes on the sheet of birthdates that Minerva McGonagall had given him. The Hufflepuffs were all unlikely candidates; one Ravenclaw girl was a possibility, but presumably her Head of House would handle that. The real problem, as Dumbledore had so delicately alluded to, were the Slytherins.

Most of them seemed to be on the right track, but a few warranted a closer watch. Millicent Bulstrode, awkward and unattractive, would not be a particularly useful prize for Voldemort; but she’d follow Pansy Parkinson anywhere, including to hell – which appeared to be Parkinson’s destination. A pity. Parkinson was an intelligent girl, he admitted grudgingly to himself, but she paid altogether too little attention to her books, and too much attention to the boys. When Draco Malfoy had thrown her over at the Yule Ball the previous year, she had become by turns wild and sullen, angry and withdrawn. Over the summer she had fallen in with Marcus Flint, who was much too old for her, and almost certainly a Death Eater. That was an influence he had little hope of countering.

But that was what was required of him, he thought grimly, watching the Slytherins and Gryffindors quietly grinding ingredients and adding them to the bubbling cauldrons in front of them.. To save Parkinson from her ostensible lover, to save Bulstrode from Parkinson, and to save Crabbe and Malfoy from their parents -- Goyle, who was already seventeen and therefore of age, was clearly a lost cause.

At least he didn’t have to concern himself with any of the Gryffindors as they had their precious Harry Potter, who would save them all, no doubt. No need to save those souls from Voldemort, although – he strode swiftly to a table in the rear and knocked Neville Longbottom’s hand away from his cauldron – it was clear he was still going to have to save some of them from themselves.

“The dried lacewing, Longbottom, does not go in for another ten minutes.”

“Can’t even tell time, Longbottom?” came a derisive whisper from Malfoy, a few tables away.

“Get stuffed,” muttered Ron Weasley.

“Be silent, Weasley, or it will be ten points from Gryffindor,” said Snape as he returned to his desk at the front of the room. Malfoy looked smug.

Snape had never bothered to hide his favoritism for the young Malfoy, just as he never hid his disdain for incompetent bumblers like Longbottom. Malfoy was intelligent, and a good student, although admittedly not a hard worker. He supposed the luxury of wealth and a famous family excused Malfoy from the burden of actually having to do anything. Much like Potter, in fact. And Potter was doing his best to live up to the cavalier, rule-breaking legacy of his father, albeit on the side of the angels, such as they were; no doubt Malfoy would live up to that of his own father, Lucius. Brilliant, ambitious, and unrelentingly, indisputably, evil.

And indisputably beautiful, thought Snape, watching the silver-blond head bent over the cauldron. The boy looked so much like his father had at that age. He had no doubt that Lucius Malfoy intended to bring his son to the Death Eaters; and he had no doubt that Draco would follow eagerly. As eagerly as he himself had followed Lucius so long ago.

Memories washed over him. Lucius’s voice in his ear, Lucius’s body pressed against his own, Lucius’s long fingers twined in his hair. Lucius stroking not just his skin, but his ego and ambition. For the young Severus, burning and blinded, it was a simple step to take, to follow Lucius into the darkness. To pledge his heart to Lucius and his soul to Voldemort. To take the Dark Mark. He had given himself over completely.

And then he had been abandoned.

And then he had been saved.

Snape slowly became aware that the fires were no longer burning under the cauldrons, that the students had put their stirring-spoons aside and were watching him. He reached for the sheaf of metal rods on his desk.

“Apparently, you have completed your assignment without blowing up anything.” At this, he directed his gaze to Longbottom, who blushed furiously. “Now we shall see if you have actually accomplished your task.” He strode from one table to another, testing the students’ solutions, dispensing acid remarks to those whose potions failed to distinguish the true gold rod from the others, bestowing grudging praise on those who had succeeded.

“Fortunately, most of you will likely not have occasion to identify gold from dross,” he said, returning to the front of the room. “But, I assure you, it can be a most useful skill.” He dismissed them with a quick movement of the head.

Snape watched the young Malfoy sweep his books together and slouch out of the room, flanked by those goons Crabbe and Goyle. It would be extremely satisfying, in myriad complex ways, to keep him from going over to Voldemort. His debt to Dumbledore would be discharged; his treatment at Lucius’s hands would be revenged. There was only one question. Would Malfoy choose the gold, or the dross?

“Don’t you have somewhere else to be?” grumbled Draco. Sprawled in an overstuffed armchair in the Slytherin common room, he was finding it hard to concentrate on his Charms textbook with Vincent and Gregory hanging over him.

“We got a right to be here just like you,” Vincent Crabbe pointed out.

“But not a right to be right in my face.” Draco waved around the room. “Go sit somewhere else. I’ve got work to do.”

“So does we,” said Gregory, with a quick look at Vincent.

“Well, do it then.”

“Da told me to keep an eye on you.”

Oh, fuck. So that’s what it was. Ever since Goyle had come of age and formally joined the Death Eaters, he’d been acting like a goddamn babysitter. Didn’t they trust him? Hell, didn’t his own father trust him? What did they think he was going to do, run off and play with Potter when they weren’t looking?

Draco slammed his book shut. “You can keep your eye in your own goddamned head. I’m going to the library. Alone.” Not that he imagined they’d even know where the library was, considering how close those morons had come to flunking out.

In the library, Draco opened his book again, but studying did not come any easier. Goyle’s words still grated on him. The impetus would not have come from Goyle Senior, who was, in Draco’s opinion, as dull-witted as his son. No, it was his own father who wanted to watch over him.

How humiliating, to be treated as a child when he was nearly seventeen. When everything that he’d done, every victory in Quidditch, every perfect exam score, had been for his father. To prove that he was worthy of being a Malfoy. It was a game, a bargain. His father showered him with presents, smoothed his way, dropped hints in the right ears. In turn, he was asked only to be successful. Hadn’t he been successful enough? What had he done to lose his father’s confidence?

Two fourth-year Hufflepuff girls walked past him to the door, giggling and shooting glances in his direction. He glowered at them, not really seeing them – and then it suddenly hit him, what his father might be concerned about, and he had to stifle a giggle himself.

During their summer vacation in France, they had visited some family friends, associates of his father from the old days. They were uniformly powerful men and women, with impeccable wizard bloodlines and dubious integrity. And they all had daughters of approximately Draco’s age. By the time they’d returned to England he had become – well, not engaged exactly, Gabrielle was still only thirteen, but there was an…understanding.

Draco grinned as he settled back into his chair and pulled out his notebook and quill. That had to be it – poor old Father was worried he’d waste himself on some Hogwarts girl. But Father didn’t know that it wasn’t the girls he had to worry about.

The days gave way to each other in their usual progression. Much too fast, in Snape’s opinion; he felt stretched between his obligations, unable to rest, unable to relax. Over dinner one night he admitted stiffly to Minerva McGonagall that perhaps he was not of the proper temperament to be Head of House.

“Nonsense, Severus.” Her voice was typically brisk; nobody got away with anything on her watch, not even a fellow professor. “We are on the front lines here, and we all must do our jobs.”

“Crabbe’s birthday was last week. He went further than Hogsmeade on the weekend, I am certain.”

McGonagall shook her head. “No surprise there. Triage, Severus – concentrate on the ones we can save.”

But Snape wasn’t certain he could save anyone at all. He’d seen Millicent Bulstrode one afternoon, sniffling in a corner from some imagined slight from Parkinson. He’d invited her to take tea in his office, but the silly girl had paled and shaken so hard he had had to excuse her. It was not in his nature to be friendly with the students. It was not in their nature to see him as a friend.

There was one possibility. He’d seen Malfoy begin to chafe at the presence of the troll twins, as Snape referred to Crabbe and Goyle in the privacy of his own thoughts, and that was a promising sign. Malfoy seemed irritated, out of sorts. Perhaps he was ready to rebel against the presumption that he would follow his father into Voldemort’s service.

Snape had been watching him closely. And he’d had the very disquieting notion that Malfoy was watching him closely, too. The turncoat, the traitor – he was certain that Lucius had filled the boy’s head with stories. That the stories were true didn’t matter. What mattered was where they could lead.

Double Potions, Gryffindors and Slytherins, and the room was a messy nightmare of nervous students and strewn ingredients. The smells of asphodel and camphor and tar warred with each other, and a fine dusting of ground beetle shell covered the floor nearest to Dean Thomas’s cauldron, which had begun hissing ominously.

“Is there a problem, Thomas?”

The boy became doubly nervous under the Potion master’s icy stare. “Uh, no sir.”

Hermione Granger leaned over from the next table over. “Here, use mine, I’ll grind up some…”

“That will be quite enough, Miss Granger. Ten points from Gryffindor.”

Snape had just begun to turn away when he heard Malfoy loudly whisper, “Stick together, Mudbloods.”

He whirled around again. “And detention for you, Mr. Malfoy.”

The entire room was shocked into silence. Snape slowly swiveled his head, noting the stares. Weasley looked like he wanted to burst out laughing, Granger was glaring warningly at Weasley – smart girl – and everyone else just looked stunned. Particularly Draco Malfoy.

“I’d do something about that potion, Thomas,” Snape said, into the silence.

“The world must be coming to an end,” said Ron Weasley loudly as Draco pushed by him in the corridor. Ron elbowed Harry, who stood next to him. “Teacher’s pet getting detention?”

“Shut up, Weasel,” said Draco.

“Maybe Snape just woke up on the wrong side of the bed,” said Harry.

Ron snorted. “Snape always wakes up on the wrong side of the bed.”

Draco glared at them both before turning up the stairs for Arithmancy. What a pair of twits. But he hadn’t expected it either, Professor Snape giving him detention for one lousy comment, when he’d gotten away with so much more before. Wrong side of the bed, or something, yeah. Which turned out to have been an unfortunate choice of words on Ron’s part, because the image of the Potions master in bed kept creeping into Draco’s mind during the next hour, distracting him from Professor Vector’s drone.

Lately Draco had been thinking about Professor Snape a great deal. Those long, strong fingers expertly teasing the thin strands of silk from a milkweed pod. The way his cloak billowed from his shoulders as he strode down the corridor. The cool and measured tones of his voice, a voice which seemed to wrap around Draco like silken cords, soft but unbreakably strong. Yeah, he was a little spooky-looking, tall and hawk-nosed, his greasy black hair at odds with his impeccable dress and manicured fingernails. But there was something in him Draco found compelling. He just wasn’t sure quite what. He wasn’t even exactly sure why.

After an excessively boring Arithmancy class, Draco returned to the Slytherin rooms to drop off his books before heading for the dungeons. Goyle was there, lounging on a sofa, and he gave Draco a shrewd glance but said nothing as the other boy left to serve his detention.

“Come in.” Professor Snape was behind his office desk, looking through some papers.

“Detention, sir.”

He didn’t even look up. “The table along the right wall. You’ll find some wormwood and a grater.”

Draco had been working for twenty minutes when Snape spoke again. “Have you had a falling-out with Goyle, Malfoy?”

A personal question? From Professor Snape? Draco was so startled he nearly dropped the grater.

“His quality of work has dropped remarkably. In fact,” Snape continued, “I rather suspect that he is finally turning in his own answers.”

Draco fought to hide a smile. “I can’t imagine what you mean, sir,” he said, blandly.

“Of course,” Snape continued, as if he hadn’t heard Draco, “it would be unreasonable to expect Mr. Goyle to think for himself.” He stood, leaned forward on his desk. “But it is something I expect of you.”

“Sir?”

“Think. For. Yourself.” The velvet voice snapped out each word. Draco could practically hear the capital letters.

“Malfoy. Who, pray tell me, is the best student in your class?”

“Granger,” he muttered, sullenly.

“Granger, yes. And who is the most hopeless?”

“Longbottom.”

“Correct again. Although Mr. Goyle is threatening to overtake him. What do Longbottom and Goyle have in common, in addition to their pathetic inability in class?”

They’re both fat and ugly, thought Draco, but he wasn’t about to say it. He looked up at his professor with a sneer of defiance. “How should I know?”

“Something in common with you. Pedigree, Malfoy.”

His eyes blazed hotly. “The Goyles are peasants. Our family would never treat with them on a social level.”

“I am not referring to nobility, Malfoy. I am referring to their fine wizarding heritage.” Draco could hear the scorn in Snape’s voice. “Families of ability, all. And yet our gifted Miss Granger is the child of Muggles. Do you suppose, Malfoy, that something other than pedigree is at work?”

“She studies all the time.”

“All the books in the world won’t turn a Muggle into a wizard.” The professor’s eyes seemed to bore into him; he could feel a flush creeping up the back of his neck. “Respect talent, Malfoy. Respect intelligence. But do not accord mere pedigree the respect it does not deserve.”

“My father –“

“Your father,” Snape continued smoothly, “should think for himself. But he turned that power over to another long ago.”

He was referring to Lord Voldemort, Draco knew. Lucius still was not an open supporter of the Dark Lord, but it was no secret. Of course Professor Snape knew; they had both been Death Eaters before Voldemort’s first fall. He supposed they must have been friends then. But last year the battle lines had been drawn, his father and his professor on opposite sides, and he could feel the dark undercurrent of tension between them even if he couldn’t quite identify its source.

Draco looked over to where Snape stood watching him. There was a curious expression on that severe face, a look of part anger and part – frustration? Expectation? Had anyone made a remark like that the previous year, or perhaps even the previous month, he would have snapped back in defense of his father. But between the increasing pressure that he sensed from home and his disquieting awareness of the cool physical energy of the other man, he felt confused. Tentative.

“He tried to get you fired over the summer.”

“You will notice that I am still here,” said Snape. He smiled briefly, just a curl of the lip exposing stained teeth.

“Father says that loyalty is a virtue.”

“Lucius does not have the right to talk of loyalty.” He leaned closer to Draco, met his eyes. His voice turned low and soft, with an unmistakable urgency. “Be loyal to your own heart. Else you will regret it.”

“Did you regret it, sir?” And instantly Draco regretted the words.

“You will notice that I am still here.” Then he pulled back, began walking to his desk. “As is that wormwood. If you do not wish to miss dinner, I suggest you get back to work.”

Chapter 2

By December, Pansy Parkinson was displaying a small diamond ring and telling anybody who would listen that she and Marcus were marrying as soon as the school year was over. “Sorry, Draco,” she purred at the Slytherin table, “I guess you’ll just have to pine away.”

“Not bloody likely, darling,” he replied.

“It’s not like he doesn’t have half the school trying to get into his pants, you know,” said Blaise, with a touch of envy.

“Not me,” said Tracey.

“Yeah, you’re too busy mooning over Terry.” Tracey’s infatuation with a Ravenclaw was a common subject at the table, and Draco was all too happy to let the conversation veer away from his love life and toward Tracey’s. It wasn’t a subject he wanted to discuss with anyone, least of all his fellow Slytherins.

He and Pansy had been an item for an entire year, and everybody had assumed they were sleeping together long before they actually were. In fact, he realized, it had been almost exactly a year ago; they both had been virgins, and awkward, but it was still awfully fun. It had almost seemed to be what he had wanted. Until the Yule Ball.

They had wandered out into the charmed, warmed garden, trying to find a private trysting spot that wasn’t already taken by another trysting couple. A spot behind a copse of trees looked good, although Draco could see bodies in the shadowed recess next to the castle. He had pulled a murmuring Pansy into the hollow formed by the trees, kissed her neck. Begun to remove her robes when she craned her head. “Isn’t that Neville Longbottom over there?”

“They won’t see us, Pansy, don’t worry,” he said, intent on sliding his hand under the cloth, next to her breast. When she pulled away, making a sudden, sharp noise of surprise, he thought at first that he’d somehow hurt her. Then he followed her eyes to the wall. To Neville Longbottom. And Justin Finch-Fletchley.

“That is so-o disgusting,” she whispered to him. But he hardly heard. He was watching Neville dropping slowly to his knees, gently sliding his hands down the other boy’s robes. He was watching Justin’s hands in Neville’s hair as Neville carefully undid Justin’s trousers. By the time Neville leaned forward to take the other boy’s erection into his mouth, Draco was as hard as Justin. And he knew that Pansy’s body was never going to satisfy him again.

The hell of it was that trying to find somebody else’s body was scarier than being cornered by a werewolf. In the locker room after Quidditch practice, he didn’t dare let his eyes rest on any of the naked bodies around him a moment longer than necessary. It was something to make jokes about, something that applied to other people, other laughably weak and stupid people. He didn’t dare approach anyone. What if he were wrong about them?

He’d kept his lust secret, maintaining the Malfoy persona, the cool, smirking leader of the pack. But every night for weeks he fantasized about Derrick, one of the team Beaters; then for a while it was Blaise; then it was a Ravenclaw boy he’d seen in a corridor, whose name he didn’t even know. He even briefly fantasized about that wretched Harry Potter. Then it was summer, and France, and he wasn’t about to do anything under his father’s watchful eye which might get him in trouble. And then it was fall again. And all of a sudden he couldn’t get his mind off his Potions professor.

Who was sweeping across the hall toward the table. The Slytherin chatter quieted at the approach of their Head of House.

“We are discussing preparations for the holidays,” said Snape. “Who is staying?”

“I am,” said Tracey, her eyes on the Ravenclaw table.

“So am I,” chimed in Millicent.

Snape’s eyes raked the table, settled on Draco. “Malfoy?”

He felt his neck redden. “I haven’t decided yet.” The letter from his parents he’d received the previous week made it clear that his family expected him home. Particularly because, his father had reminded him, his birthday would fall during the interval. A momentous birthday, for which it would be appropriate to be with family.

“The list will be posted near the door of the Great Hall. Sign your name if you expect to stay.” Snape looked again at Draco, then returned to the head table, his black cloak swirling in his wake.

“Well?” said Minerva McGonagall.

“I cannot tell. But if he does not stay, he will be lost to us.”

“You’ve made a lot of progress, Severus. He’s changed greatly over the past several months.”

That he had. Snape had made certain to speak with Malfoy every few weeks on some pretext: his coursework, his responsibilities as prefect, his Quidditch performance. Never pushing hard, but pushing nonetheless. “He’s growing up.”

“And about time, too,” McGonagall said tartly. “He was the most annoying brat Hogwarts has ever seen.”

“Our future rests in the hands of annoying brats, Minerva.”

She sighed. “If there’s to be any future at all. I hear disquieting news from London. The Ministry is essentially subverted.”

His lips tightened. “Nothing we hadn’t suspected. Although I’ve seen nothing in the press.”

“No, they’re keeping it quiet. But my cousin is frightened enough that he’s leaving the city.”

Just then the mail-owls flew into the hall, circling overhead in a great noisy swarm. One dropped an envelope in front of Snape, who picked it up; creamy, thick parchment with the dragon crest of the Malfoys on the seal. He slit the envelope and slid out the letter.

My dear Severus,

Word has come to me that you are spending an inordinate amount of time with my son. I feel obligated to remind you that your instruction should be limited to the art of Potions. Moral instruction is the responsibility of a parent. As I have reason to believe your morals may be a bit questionable, I am understandably concerned. Touch him, and even Dumbledore will not be able to protect you.

Lucius

Snape had nothing to hide from his colleague, who had been his professor when he’d been Lucius’s lover; he passed her the letter, which she scanned quickly. “He is a snake, that one, isn’t he?”

“I fail to see how his threats make any difference. They have already vowed to kill me.”

“Which will be sooner, rather than later, if we are forced to dismiss you as a teacher,” she snapped. “Which will not happen. Correct?”

“Correct.” He hadn’t the slightest intention of making the Malfoy boy his lover. Not that it wasn’t a tempting idea; Draco was as lithe and handsome as Lucius had been, with the same fine features and white-blond hair, and he could see echoes of the father in the casually arrogant way he inhabited his body, like a young prince. Too, he could see in the boy the same hunger he himself had shown at that age, the ambition to succeed despite obstacles, an eye for power. Lucius, three years older than he, had radiated power; his intimacy with the dark world that Voldemort ruled was just another facet of his charm, one which he had ruthlessly exploited to lure the young Severus into that world. Draco was as he had been, looking for a guide into the exhilarating sphere of influence and authority. Severus just hoped that Draco would choose him rather than his father. And that he would be a better guide.

At the Slytherin table, Draco was unfolding his own letters. His mother had written a perfunctory note, wrapped around two bars of his favorite brand of chocolate. Next to it was a short letter in his father’s hand.

I don’t want to hear any of this nonsense about staying at school for the holidays. We have a task to do, and you have a role in it; if you are to assume your rightful place, you must return home.

I have heard that you are talking a great deal with Professor Snape. You know, of course, that he has turned his back on those who were once his closest friends. But there are other, more important reasons why it would be unwise to trust him.

It does not surprise me that he wants to get close to you. I am sure he tells you that he wants to be your friend. He wants more than that. When we were in school, he liked boys the way that you like girls. I don’t expect he’s changed. Don’t let him touch you.

As he folded the letters to put them away, Draco trembled. Oh, yes, he thought. Oh, no.

He was trembling again a week later as he descended the stone steps to Snape’s office. His classes had passed in a daze. The letter was all he could think about, the letter that had been intended to warn him but only excited him, teased him, tempted him. Instead of paying attention in class, he daydreamed increasingly elaborate fantasies. He had accidentally turned his beetle into a drinking glass instead of a looking glass in Transfiguration, had used a shrinking spell instead of a magnification spell in Charms, and had flown his broom straight into the side of the stands during Quidditch practice. And then in Potions…oh, fuck, he was a dead man.

He should have been paying attention to what Snape was saying. Instead he let the silken voice wash over him in waves, lapping him gently like warm water as he thought about unbuttoning his professor’s high collar and down, all the way down to his trousers, like Longbottom and Finch-Fletchley, all the way down. In his mind he was already on his knees, his mouth open, his eyes closed. When the instruction stopped and the laboratory work began, he chose the wrong vial from the cabinet, and the result was as spectacular as any of Longbottom’s failures. And more humiliating, because he had never, ever, screwed up like that before.

“Come in.”

Draco entered without speaking, walked toward the desk where Snape sat so elegantly. So poised, like a snake coiled and ready to strike, glittering black eyes holding him transfixed. Draco felt very small, and very miserable.

“You seemed rather... preoccupied...during class.”

“I’m not – I don’t know – I’m sorry, sir.” He stared fixedly at the floor. He had not apologized very many times in his life; Malfoys, as a rule, did not apologize for anything.

“Malfoy.” The word was almost a purr. “I understand what is bothering you.”

Oh, fuck, thought Draco wildly, his face crimsoning.

“What you are considering will change your life in many ways. Do not undertake this step lightly.”

Oh, fuck, oh bloody fuck. He would not look up, would not meet that basilisk gaze. How can he know ?

“Think for yourself, Malfoy. When you let someone tell you what you must do, you give him power over you. There is no one that deserves that power.”

What?

“Be loyal to your own heart. There is nothing else.”

Understanding flooded Draco like sunlight. He almost laughed. “Father wants me to join them. I will be initiated on the day after Christmas – that’s my birthday.”

A black eyebrow raised. “Is that what you want?”

“Does it matter?”

Snape was on his feet in one smooth movement. He crossed the space between them in two steps, gripped Draco by the shoulders. “Don’t be a fool. Of course it matters.”

Draco felt his knees weaken. “He says I’ll be a leader of the new order. It will make me unimaginably powerful.”

“At an unimaginable price,” Snape hissed.

“I can’t defy Father.”

“Remain here over Christmas.”

“Do you want me to stay?” He felt intoxicated. Snape’s hands on his shoulders, his face so close to his own. He liked boys. I don’t expect he’s changed.

“I believe you should stay.”

“Do you want me?” Draco’s voice broke to a whisper. “I want you.”

Lucius had never looked like this. In fact until recently Snape would not have believed that Draco – smug, smirking Draco – could look so vulnerable. As he hesitated, wondering just how in Merlin’s name he was going to handle this, the boy tentatively reached around his waist and leaned into him. His body inadvertently stirred at the contact. This would not do. It was absolutely contrary to what he had been trying to achieve, it was not ethical, and for all he knew, the boy could be working for his father, trying to provoke him into an act that would result in his dismissal from the safety of Hogwarts. A paranoid thought, but years as a spy had taught him the value of a certain amount of paranoia.

He gently extracted himself and stepped away, but was caught by the hunted, desperate look in the boy’s eyes. “Malfoy. Draco. Are you all right?”

“You don’t want me. It was a lie,” said Draco, dully. He looked down at the floor.

“What was a lie?”

The boy reached into the pocket of his robe and drew out a folded piece of parchment, thrust it into his hand. “He wants me to hate you. But he doesn’t know.”

“Doesn’t know what, Malfoy?” It was the thick parchment the Malfoys favored, obviously unfolded and refolded many times. He flattened out the many creases and read the brief letter. Oh, Lucius, he thought.

“Do I have to say it?” Draco’s eyes glittered with barely-held back tears, his body trembled. “I don’t – I don’t like girls. Not that way. I thought you’d understand. But it was a lie.”

The chasm yawned wide beneath Snape’s feet; whatever he did, whatever he said, it would be wrong. Which would be the greater kindness? Which the greater crime?

He sighed. “It is not a lie.”

The quick spark of hope in the boy’s eyes cut him to the bone. What a beautiful temptation he was. It would be like having Lucius again, Lucius with a heart made from something other than ice and stone. He was tempted to take what was offered just to show Draco what a singularly bad idea it was; either that, or shake him until he came to his senses. Instead he pulled a chair close and indicated for Draco to sit, then moved one over for himself, carefully positioning it, not too close.

“Listen, Draco. It is true that I prefer men.” He stressed the last word slightly. “But I have not been trying to get you into my bed. I have been trying to teach you to question things, things that you have been taking for granted. Things that your father takes for granted.”

“Do you care about me?” It was almost a whisper.

“I care enough to do whatever I can to keep you from blindly following your father into Voldemort’s service.”

“Then care about me!” Draco’s voice shook, but his eyes blazed with new determination.

“I am your teacher. You are a child.” It was getting more difficult to maintain control. He was used to being feared, even to being hated, but he was not accustomed to being desired. By Lucius’s son, no less.

“For three more weeks. Less than that.”

“Yes. And then you will be of age. Will you join them then?”

He could see the emotions warring on the boy’s face. Confusion, petulance, anger. Maybe he had pushed him too far.

Then Draco smiled. It was almost the old Draco smile, arrogant and superior, but there was a hint of bitterness, too.

“It’s your choice, professor. On my birthday I will either become a Death Eater, or your lover. Which will it be?”

Chapter 3

Draco ignored the gasps of surprise that greeted him as he swept into the Great Hall with Millicent Bulstrode on his arm. She really wasn’t a bad kid, although he couldn’t help wishing she was built a little less like a Quidditch Beater. This was going to kill his reputation for sure. But he’d promised.

Oh, it had been a grand battle in Snape’s office, all right. The Potions master had screamed blackmail, berated him for thinking so little of his future, and threatened to give him detention every day for the rest of his term at school. But the more he stormed, the more Draco felt his confidence return. He was a Malfoy, after all, accustomed to getting his way through the subtle combination of bribery and threat. He had seen something in Snape’s eyes and instinctively gone for the throat, as it were, and he had no doubt that he was right. In the end, Snape had acquiesced – on the condition that Draco would escort Millicent to the Yule Ball.

He, of course, had been utterly dismayed. “Millicent? Oh, no.”

“You set your terms, I set mine.”

“But I’m only asking for something we both want.”

Snape shot him a probing look but let the implication slide. “Pansy will destroy her. She needs a friend.”

Draco scowled. “She’ll follow me around for the rest of the year. I don’t need this.”

“Tell her that since you are both unattached, you might as well attend the festivities together. Perhaps you can invent some girlfriend in France, to explain why, to your great regret, you can be only a friend to her.”

His jaw dropped. “How did you know?”

The other man gave a short, harsh laugh. “I may be in disgrace in your father’s circle, but I still have connections.”

So he had reluctantly agreed to squire Millicent on Christmas. Much to his surprise, she had not been at all put out by his explanation about Gabrielle. He began to wonder if maybe her interest in Pansy was the same as…well, he wasn’t going to think about that.

In the weeks since their confrontation, Snape had treated him exactly as he had before. The older man had made it very clear that there was to be absolutely no change in their relationship until he had come of age. And that was fine. The promise alone was enough; it charged his whole being, energized him. The confusion was gone, and he felt powerful and relaxed, in control again. And here he was at the Yule Ball, on top of the world. Tomorrow would be his birthday, he had the warm glow of butterbeer in his belly, and he was dancing with the ugliest girl in school. Well, you can’t have everything.

The tinkle of laughter broke into his thoughts; he looked up and saw a group of Gryffindors.

“How awful to be so hard up for a date,” remarked Weasley. He had his arm around Hermione Granger, but he was looking right at Draco.

Millicent flinched in his arms; a hot fire blazed up his spine. “Just a minute.” He strode over to Weasley, his silvery-grey dress robes swirling around him. “You’re pathetic, Weasley. I know you don’t like me, but don’t take it out on her.”

“Oh, I wasn’t talking about you, Malfoy. I was feeling sorry for her having to put up with you.” The other Gryffindors laughed again.

Draco was about to grab the cup of punch from the other boy’s hand and pour it over his head when he saw Weasley blanch. He looked up to see Snape standing over them, glaring. “Is the ball so uninteresting that you would rather spend it scrubbing the dungeon floor?”

“No, sir,” both boys muttered.

“Your partner is waiting for you, Malfoy.”

“Yes, sir,” he mumbled as he started making his way back toward Millicent. Then he looked back at Snape. He had already returned to his place against the wall, where he watched the students like a black vulture. Against the bright colors of the students’ vivid dress robes and the party decorations, his black hair and robes seemed more solid and real than anything else in the room. He was an anchor, the one fixed point among the swirling robes and fluttering streamers, and Draco had to fight the impulse to cross the room in front of everyone and throw his arms around him, just to hold on. Instead he waited until Snape looked at him again. Draco caught his eye, mouthed two words: “You promised.”

A hint of a smile, and lips moved in a silent reply. “Midnight.”

Midnight. Draco eased from his room on the prefects’ hallway off the Slytherin common room; he and Millicent had left the Great Hall an hour earlier and then talked in the common room for a while, but his mind was on midnight and he knew he wasn’t paying as much attention to her words as he should have been. He had given her a chaste kiss on the cheek, then headed off to his room, where he had pulled off his shoes and curled up in his armchair, his thoughts a jumble, unable to concentrate on anything other than the clock.

His bare feet were cold on the stone floor. The rest of his body felt ridiculously warm, even though he’d left most of his clothes in his room. He still wore the silken grey robe he’d had on earlier, but nothing else. The luxurious cloth whispered across his bare skin as he slipped through the darkened corridor to the door of Snape’s apartment. He’d knocked on that door a few times before, on those rare occasions when a crisis among the students required him to fetch the Head of House. But never had his heart pounded so hard, never had his mouth felt so dry as he reached up to tap tentatively against the wood.

The door swung open, and he stepped inside. Snape was seated in a black leather armchair, a glass tumbler holding an inch of amber liquid on the low table next to him. In one hand he held an open book, in the other a wand. He pointed the wand at the door and murmured a spell. Behind him, Draco heard the door gently close.

He could not keep from staring as Snape set first the wand, then the book on the table. He was wearing a long, loose, high-collared black shirt over equally loose trousers, and his hair, which for a change looked freshly washed, fell softly to his shoulders like raven’s wings. This was a Snape he’d never seen before.

“Draco.”

“Professor.”

The other man’s lips twitched. “We will not get far if you continue to remind me that I am contemplating violating the teacher-student relationship. You will call me Severus in these rooms.”

Draco nodded, unwilling to speak. Snape rose smoothly from his chair, lifted the glass tumbler. “Whisky?”

He shook his head. Snape took a drink, set the glass down, then abruptly crossed the room to where Draco stood and looked searchingly into his eyes. “You may leave now, if you choose.”

Deep breath. “I want this. I want you.” He took a step forward and tentatively placed his fingertips on Snape’s jaw. “You promised.”

The black eyes held an unreadable expression as Snape leaned toward him, reached out to touch his shoulders, pulled him slowly into a kiss. It was not at all like kissing Pansy. The smoky taste of the whisky, the rough skin against his own, the slow, deliberate heat of the other man, all bore into Draco’s brain the insistent message that this was something altogether different than anything he’d ever experienced.

Severus broke the kiss but left his hands on Draco’s shoulders. His eyes blazed with intensity. “Swear to me that you are here by your own choice.”

“You know I am,” said Draco, but the eyes did not leave his. “All right, I swear. I am here by choice.”

“What is it that you want?” Severus asked, and Draco realized that in some strange formal way he was asking permission. He looked down at the floor.

“I want you to take me as your lover,” he said quietly. “Please.”

A hand moved from his shoulder, tilted his jaw so that he was looking into the depths of Severus’s eyes. “In that case, Draco,” he said, his voice a silken whisper, “let us begin.” He bent again to Draco’s mouth, brushing it gently with his lips before straightening. “I imagine the bedroom will be more comfortable.”

Draco had never been in Snape’s bedroom before and he looked around with interest. It was as spare as the man himself, with simple ebony furniture arranged over a soft woven rug in shades of black and grey. The bedclothes were a forest green so dark it was nearly black as well. The only color in the room was a large tapestry on one wall, medieval by the looks of it, showing a man wrestling what could have been a small dragon, or a large snake.

Severus touched the candles on the dresser with the tip of his wand, bringing them to flame, then put the wand down and turned to Draco. The combination of nervousness and anticipation and, yes, lust in the boy’s eyes brought an ache to his heart. Did he know what he was asking for? And why, of all people, was he asking him?

Their lips met gently at first. But as Draco’s tongue flickered hesitantly into his mouth he met it with his own passion, and soon they were clasped together, tongues exploring each other’s mouths, hands exploring each other’s bodies. He was aware of Draco’s erection pressing against his thigh, and his own body was reacting as well. It had been so long since he’d had a lover, since he’d felt that tingle brush across his body from his lips to his spine.

Gently he slid one hand from Draco’s neck to the clasps of his robe, which came apart in his fingers. One tug, and the silvery material was on the floor. Dressed for seduction, thought Severus as he took in the boy’s naked body – no, not a boy, he corrected himself, a man. More muscular than Lucius had been, but the same pale skin, covered with pale down which gleamed in the candlelight. A beautiful man.

Draco reached out a hand toward his clothes, making as if to unfasten his shirt, and he clasped his own hand on top, stopping him.

“But I want to see you.”

“I expect that I look better in your imagination,” he replied dryly. He was only too aware of his white skin, his skinny torso, his narrow hips. And…other things.

“I don’t care, I want to see you.” He moved again toward Severus’s nightshirt.

“Be careful what you wish for.” Severus spoke in a low tone, so low that Draco had to strain to hear. Then in one swift motion he pulled off the shirt. “Well?” he said, his voice acid in his own ears.

He could see the shock in Draco’s eyes. He himself did not particularly like looking in the mirror these days, at the scars which chased each other from his neck to his waist.

The eyes flickered from the scars on his torso, to the Dark Mark of the skull and snake, an angry black tattoo on his arm. “The Death Eaters?”

“You could say that. My lover, the one who…recruited me. He enjoyed causing pain.” Particularly as he prepared to discard me, he thought but didn’t add aloud. My lover. Your father.

He refused to flinch as Draco traced a finger down one discolored line of flesh to his navel. “I think you’re lovely,” he said, as he bent to kiss the tortured skin.

Severus groaned as the soft lips explored his belly. He did not stop Draco as he slid the trousers down his hips. “I’ve been wanting to do this for so long,” the boy whispered, and Severus could not think, could not focus any longer, as those lips closed around him. His hands reached blindly for the white-blond hair, gripped it tightly as Draco’s soft mouth moved against his hardness, it felt so good, it felt so good. Draco’s tongue slithered around him, across the sensitive head and down to the base. Draco’s hands caressed his balls and between his thighs. It was not Lucius, no, not these gentle hands. Lucius was never so gentle. No, he would not think of him. He would think only of Draco.

With slight regret he held Draco’s head still, pulled away. “Come.” The bed was soft and inviting, and he led Draco there. So trusting, so open, there on his bed. On his back, eyes open wide, mouth slightly parted. He knelt next to the young, strong body, swept his hands lightly across nipples, ribs, groin.

Draco closed his eyes and moaned. Those long, beautiful fingers, finally on his skin. Touching him. Caressing him. Fingers wrapped around his erection and he couldn’t help it, he had been holding it in for so long, he tried to resist but felt the orgasm pulsing out of him in long waves.

“Oh sorry sorry I didn’t mean…”

“Shhh.” A spell was whispered and he felt the dampness on his belly disappear. Fingers continued to trace patterns on his chest. Lips moved toward his, left a searing trail across his jawline, to his ear. A soft growl. “What I want to know, Malfoy, is why. Why have you come to my bed?”

Draco opened his eyes, looked frankly at the ink-black eyes so close to his, the pale skin like parchment stretched over a tight frame. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

“I’m twice your age. Not the face of an angel.”

“It’s not how you look. I mean, it is, you have the most amazing hands, and actually I think tall men are rather sexy, but it’s not that, really.” He hesitated a bit, then plunged on. “You’re the first person who’s ever talked to me, really talked to me as a person, like I wasn’t just a Malfoy with the Malfoy expectations to live up to. You make me want to live up to your expectations.”

“Which are entirely different.”

“Yes, I mean, that’s the point,” started Draco, but he wasn’t sure exactly what point he was trying to make, because that was when the rough lips on his neck began tracing another path down to his chest, teeth grazed at his nipples, and he forgot what he was going to say. If he was going to say anything at all.

“Ah, to be seventeen,” murmured Severus as he reached Draco’s cock, which was already nearly hard again. His tongue flickered once against its length before he propped himself up on his elbows. “Draco.”

“Hmm?” He didn’t want to speak, because it meant he might have to think. And that would mean concentrating on something else than the lovely sensations in his body.

“Have you done this before?”

“Well, yes. I mean, with a girl.”

A low chuckle. He felt Severus’s hand move down past his ball sac, probe at his opening. “Have you done this before?”

He gasped. “No. But I want to. Please.”

He heard a quiet “accio ,” felt a cool wetness between his legs, smelled melon and lavender. Felt the pressure of a finger easing into his body as lips brushed his erection. He twisted, arched, thrusted into the new sensations. They were strange sensations, not exactly comfortable but not exactly unpleasant either. Then a second finger joined the first, and he was about to protest when what seemed like a bolt of lightning shot through him, from his cock to his brain and back again, and all he could do was whimper and moan.

Severus’s smooth voice seemed to come from a great distance. “Tell me if I hurt you. Contrary to what most students believe, I do not get pleasure from inflicting pain.”

“More. Please. It doesn’t hurt.” The fingers were withdrawn, leaving him feeling strangely empty and lost. He opened his eyes to see Severus slicking his own erection with the sweet-smelling lotion. Severus’s cock was like the rest of him, long and narrow and pale. Beautiful.

And then it was inside him. He rocked his hips up instinctively, taking pleasure in the way Severus drew his breath in sharply. Rocked down again. Felt the other man move with a slow, insistent rhythm. He tilted his head up to drink in the mouth that covered his, reached his arms around the battered body that stretched across his own. The taut belly teased him with gentle friction, had him arching his back, moaning for release. Severus’s still-moist hand eased itself between them, stroked his aching cock, and with a groan Draco shuddered and climaxed. In the sweet haze of release he was vaguely aware of a hand gripping his shoulder tightly, a heat pulsing into him.

I am complete, thought Draco sleepily as he felt the other man gently withdraw and arrange the covers around him. Nestling into the warmth of the body next to his, he was asleep in a heartbeat.

Severus did not sleep. For long minutes he watched the slight motion of the covers as the boy next to him breathed in long, even breaths. Considered the patterns made by the silvery-blond hair on his dark pillow. Silver and deep green, the colors of Slytherin house. Light and darkness. Salvation and damnation.

“Good intentions,” he murmured to himself as he carefully slipped from the bed and pulled on his discarded clothes. He extinguished the candles with a wave, then padded into the sitting room. A little whisky remained in his glass, which he drained as he sank back into his leather armchair. He picked up his book and looked at the pages without seeing them.

His intent had been to take Lucius’s place as a father figure. So much for intentions. Perhaps he should have been firmer, held to what would indisputably have been the right thing, the moral thing to do. But reasoning with a strong-willed boy on the cusp of manhood was not an easy task, particularly when one’s own desires whispered seductively in the ear. The ends will justify the means. Revenge. Desire. Lust.

Yes, he had taken Lucius’s place; his place in his own past, the role of seducer. The model to be followed not because he was right but because he was loved. Not the gold he had imagined himself, that day in the laboratory, but soft iron, the metal which misleads the compass. If only he had broken from the path earlier. But it was much too late. To step away from Draco now would be desertion, betrayal. Saving his own soul would damn Draco’s, drive him straight to the other side with a grim smile on those lovely lips.

Which brought him back to the problem of his desire. Iron control and the faint echo of his past had kept his body a mere servant of his mind, buttoned up behind a black wall of clothing and propriety. He had felt the beast clawing to get out when Draco had whispered his desire, the beast that cared not for responsibility or morality, the beast that only wanted skin against skin, heat on heat. And now the beast was free; or maybe he had become the beast.

A rustle at the doorway to his bedroom caught his attention. Draco stood there hesitantly, silver robe clasped loosely around him, hair tousled with sleep. “Severus?”

He laid down the book, stood. “Good, you are awake. Now, to your room.” He saw hurt reflected in Draco’s face, spoke gently. “It will be hard to sustain the fiction of an early morning visit if you are seen leaving my rooms in that robe.”

“I want to stay with you.”

“Another time.” Yes, there would be another time, many other times. “Come.” He held out his hand and Draco came to him, pressed his face to his chest as Severus kissed the pale hair.

“Now, out with you.” Draco went quietly, no doubt still tired. Severus was tired as well. But sleep did not come to him that night.

Chapter 4

The holidays had brought a sort of artificial cheer to Hogwarts, but as January ground on into February, the days seemed to get successively bleaker. The fragile balance of the wizarding world was slowly tipping on its edge. It became harder each day to believe in the sanctuary of the school, to pretend that lines were not being drawn. The teachers were unusually quiet as they gathered in the staff room for a pre-breakfast meeting.

“The Death Eaters have become more active recently. I have word that several have been seen in Hogsmeade,” said Dumbledore. He looked weary. “A young woman who works at Dervish and Banges is missing. The students are not to leave the grounds until further notice.”

“Hogsmeade,” said McGonagall, thoughtfully.

“I’m afraid so. Neither should any of you go singly.”

Voices raised as everyone started talking at once. “I’m sorry. But we can’t give Voldemort any chances. Young Harry is still a target, as are many of us here.”

Many of us, thought Snape. He means me. And himself, of course. He was not surprised when the headmaster asked him to stay for a moment after the meeting. What surprised him were Albus’s words.

“Are you quite sure of what you’re doing?”

Snape bowed his head. This was as close to a rebuke as he’d ever gotten from the headmaster. Useless, of course, to imagine that he would not know.

“It was the most sensible option at the time, believe it or not.”

“Of course, of course. But do take care.” He sounded almost jovial, as if he was talking about looking both ways before crossing a road, or something similarly trivial.

“I am not going to hurt him.”

A penetrating look from the all-knowing eyes. “I don’t doubt that. But will he hurt you?”

To that, he had no answer. As he strode along the corridors to the Great Hall, he wondered exactly what Dumbledore had meant. He was under no illusion that Draco’s declared feelings for him would be permanent; yes, it would hurt when he left, as he inevitably would leave, but he would simply button the beast back under his robes and continue his life as before.

It would be pleasure enough just to have rescued Draco from the darkness. And to have had a hand in turning him from a brat to a man. It was startling, really, how quickly Draco had seemed to mature; perhaps coming to terms with his sexuality had been the catalyst. The petulance surfaced only in rare flashes now; the arrogance, alas, seemed a permanent feature, but it was now leavened with a bit of humor. He had even come to a sort of truce with Harry Potter, by the looks of things.

Even more surprising, he had become fairly good friends with Millicent Bulstrode, who was now not even on speaking terms with the Parkinson girl. “Protective coloration,” Draco had told him with a grin, but it was obvious that the two of them enjoyed each other’s company. He approved completely. It was another small victory.

The snake in the garden, of course, was Lucius. Though strained, the filial bond still held, and Snape remained wary. The confident man that Draco was becoming would be an asset indeed to Voldemort, if he chose to go that way.

The announcement at breakfast did not please the older students, who whispered among themselves in a buzz of displeasure. The younger ones, of course, were confined to the school grounds as a matter of course and weren’t quite aware of what they’d be missing. Snape himself did not particularly care, as he had given up going to the Hogsmeade apothecary some months back after a close call involving a bottle of aetherium charmed as a Portkey. Whatever he needed was now requested by owl and delivered by house-elf.

After classes, he was in his office grading essays when Draco knocked. “What’s going on at Hogsmeade?”

“It is none of your concern.”

Draco pulled a chair up to the desk. “Don’t treat me like a child. Of course it’s my concern.”

“Oh, it is? Are you planning to break out of your prison here and go wrestle the Dark Lord with your bare hands?”

Draco looked at the door, then back at him with a pleading look. Snape sighed, picked up his wand. “Advigilo .” The door flared briefly with a white incandescence.

“I think they’re after you. Everybody’s favorite traitor.”

“Letters from home?”

“That’s part of it. They’re trying to get you sacked again. But some of my former friends have been acting strange lately. I think they’re up to something. Or they know of something that’s up, anyway.”

He looked up sharply. “You will not play spy.”

“What else am I good for?” Draco ground out the words with a bitterness that startled him. “Father is still expecting me to come home and be a good little Death Eater. Of course, once he figures out his son and heir isn’t going to follow along according to plan, things won’t be quite so cozy.”

Snape glared at Draco as though he had said something very stupid in class. Which in some sense, he had. “You are very likely to be killed. Or to get me killed, which will be infinitely worse.”

“I am trying to keep you from getting killed.”

“May I remind you,” he said evenly, “that I have had considerably more practice than you at keeping myself from being killed.”

Draco shook his head slightly and smiled. “Well, stay that way then. Please.” He looked down at his feet for a moment as if studying the interesting patterns of dust on the floor. “Tonight?”

“Provided you get out of here now and leave me to my work.” He watched Draco go and wondered why young people had such an unshakeable conviction that the world revolved around them. That if they didn’t save the world nobody else would. Who did the boy think he was -- Harry Potter?

Vincent and Gregory were definitely up to something, the way they hulked together in the common room and broke off talking whenever he came in. Draco did not like this one bit. It was one thing when they were his trained goons, but having them trained against him was just a little unnerving. They weren’t exactly enemies of his, now, but they were no longer his friends. Not that they were ever really friends in the first place. He wondered if they were still sending reports back to his father.

“Oi. Malfoy.” Gregory Goyle waved at him from the corner of the common room.

“What is it?” He shifted his books ostentatiously from one hand to the other, hoping to get the message across that he needed to go study right now and didn’t have the time for whatever it was that Goyle wanted.

“Can you look at this star chart and tell me if I did it right? All these lines make my head hurt.”

“Think for yourself, Goyle. If that’s possible.”

Goyle’s eyes slid over him with a sly expression. “I been telling my Da how good you help on my schoolwork.”

Draco looked at him sharply. “What else are you telling him?”

A snigger. The doughy face spread into a model of aggrieved innocence.

He sighed. Over the years he’d probably done about half of Goyle’s homework for him. In exchange, the big lump had cheerfully pummeled anyone Draco had deemed a threat, or even just sort of annoying. He sat down next to him and pulled the paper over. “All right, let’s take a look.”

He had corrected Goyle’s absurd misplacement of Spica into Taurus and was trying to explain how it was that Neptune was apparently moving backwards, when Pansy came into the room.

“Gregory! Vincent wanted me to tell you – ow!” As she reached the chairs where the two boys were sitting, she tripped, landing hard in Draco’s lap. Goyle’s papers flew everywhere. “Gosh, sorry. Here, is this yours?” She pulled a few papers from the floor.

“Couldn’t wait to be back in my arms, Pansy?”

She gave him an exasperated look. “Don’t you wish. Like I’d even bother with a boy now that I’ve got a man.” She brushed herself off, stood up, and turned back to Goyle. “I was just talking to Vincent. He’s going to be in the library until dinner and wanted you to feed Sid.” Sid was Vincent’s toad, a squatty little thing with a distinct resemblance to its owner.

“Yeah, okay. I better do that now. Thanks for the help, Malfoy.”

Draco slowly walked to his room. He’d wasted a good fifteen minutes on that stupid ape, and he wasn’t sure that it had done a bit of good. Now he’d better get going on his own schoolwork. Much to his annoyance, Snape had made completion of his assignments a prerequisite to evening visits.

He gave his customary knock, a quick rap with just the knuckle of one finger, then pushed at the door. It immediately swung open, and Draco felt a quick flush of gratified pride in knowing that his lover had left it unlocked for him. Severus was not, as usual, in his armchair, but at his writing desk, quill in hand. He acknowledged Draco with a short nod, then turned back to his work.

Draco knew better than to interrupt. He strolled around the room, idly inspecting the bookshelves. It was an impressive collection. Fiction occupied a few shelves – Snape seemed to have a taste for Dorothy Sayers and James Joyce – but many more shelves were filled with histories and biographies, and an entire bookcase was devoted to technical books on every aspect of potion making and usage.

The potions books appeared to be organized by age. At one end were impossibly old tomes, with cracked leather bindings and ornate lettering on their spines. Some seemed to be in languages other than English, and the lettering on several was hardly recognizable as human writing. Books written within the past few centuries took up the next section of shelving, and then at the end were several slender volumes with modern bindings, their titles stamped in bold letters. Uses of Anagallis Arvensis. Clarifying Solutions Compared. Blood and Power. He picked up this last, smiling when he noted the author’s name, and leafed through it.

He turned when he heard Snape’s chair push back. “I didn’t know you’d written books, Severus.”

“I doubt you will find my technical research of interest,” Snape replied as he crossed the room, flicking one hand toward the door with a murmur of “Advigilo ,” reaching for Draco with the other.

A low but piercing keening split the air from somewhere behind him. Snape stopped abruptly.

“What –“

“Quiet.” Snape’s black eyes were narrow and intent, his normally sallow face flushed. He took a few steps toward the bookcase, then stopped. “Turn around.”

Draco complied, not sure what was going on but not liking it much. Snape ran a hand down Draco’s back, then stooped toward the floor and tugged at the hem of his robe. When he straightened, he had the source of the noise in his hand. Motioning for Draco to follow, he took it over to the writing desk and placed it in the center of the blotter, then turned to a cupboard and began rifling through bottles and vials.

Draco looked at the object curiously. It appeared to be a very small willow twig and a bit of paper in the shape of a cone, all wrapped around with a thin copper wire and what looked like a human hair. In addition to the horrid noise, it was emitting a faint blue light.

“This should do nicely,” Snape said, extracting a flask from among the many in the cupboard. He unstoppered it and tilted a few drops onto the thing on the blotter, which hissed and crackled for a moment before becoming black and silent.

Draco stared at the charred object on the desk. “What was that?”

“A listening charm.” There was a tight note to Snape’s voice.

The events in the Slytherin common room before dinner lined up in his mind, fell into place. “Pansy. She deliberately tripped and fell on me in the common room earlier today.”

“Perhaps she planted it, but I doubt she created it. I suspect it was sent to her by Lucius or one of his friends.”

He tried to recall what he had said before the wards triggered the alarm. “They heard me address you as Severus.” He felt suddenly tired, and very foolish. It had been his fault, talking before the wards were back up. He had been so discreet, damn it, so careful, and now he had blown it all.

“The fact that you are here at all at this hour is damning enough.” Snape returned the bottle to the cupboard and extracted two more: cognac for Draco and whisky for himself. The liquor bottles did not look particularly different from any of the other bottles in the cupboard. Draco had once asked if he ever worried about ending up with the wrong bottle by mistake: “You might go for the Laphroiag and pull out a dessicating potion instead,” he’d said, but Severus had just looked at him. “Right. Foolish question.”

Snape poured two glasses, handed Draco his, then crossed to his armchair. Draco followed, seating himself on the ottoman.

“How are your relations with your father?”

Draco snorted. “He writes weekly. ‘Study hard, look for advantage, and don’t listen to that bastard Snape.’” There was, of course, much more, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to reveal it all. Don’t throw away your chance at power, my son. This is what your family has worked toward for centuries. I can make you great. Tempting words. But Father never gave anything away. There would be a price.

“He still expects you to join the Death Eaters?”

“He won’t commit anything as bold as that to a letter. But I would say so, yes.”

“Then I can assume he will not drag you through the mud to get to me.”

Draco’s face hardened. “I wouldn’t let him.”

“It is not for you to allow.” He sipped from his drink, then swirled the remaining liquid in the glass, watching it catch the light. “But they now have confirmation.”

Draco put his glass down, walked to the other man. “They have conjecture. What they really need is to catch us doing this.” He bent to kiss Severus gently on the lips. The taste of whisky wasn’t nearly as bad this way, second-hand from his lover’s mouth and mingled with his lover’s taste. The mouth moved under his, forming words.

“Stop. I need to think.”

He pulled back reluctantly, dropped to his chair. “I’ve been thinking all day. I’m tired of thinking.”

Severus raised an eyebrow, and his face darkened. “Perhaps you have that luxury. However, I am trying to remain alive.”

“You just said you didn’t think they’d use me to get you.”

“I did not. I said they won’t implicate you. Your father will not accuse me of improper behavior unless you will claim I forced you.”

“Which I won’t.”

“Which you say you won’t.” Severus looked hard at him, eyes unfathomable black tunnels, and he felt a deep unpleasantness in the pit of his stomach.

“You don’t trust me.”

“I don’t trust Lucius.” He stood up, paced the room, his long robe swirling around him.“ He wants you by his side, a supporter of the Dark Lord. He wants me dead for what he considers my treachery.” He gave Draco a half-smile. “And for corrupting his son.”

Draco felt a burn beginning behind his chest. He was not just a bargaining chip, damn it, not a pawn to be traded back and forth in some game of power and revenge. This was his life, and he would take control of it. He drained his cognac, adding its fire to the one already seething through his blood. “Look, Severus.” He used the name deliberately, reveling in the feeling it gave him of being an equal. “I am perfectly capable of being both your lover and my father’s son.”

The other man’s eyes bored into him for a long moment. To his surprise, the half-smile stretched into a full one. “Yes.  I believe you are.” Severus walked back to him, extended a hand, pulled him into his arms. “And if you can transcend the both of us, perhaps you will discover what it is to be Draco Malfoy.”

Chapter 5

The letters from his father had taken on a distinctly different tone in the weeks since the incident of the listening charm, thought Draco. The oblique promises of power had given way to an almost cold recitation of peremptory requests: you will complete your exams with high marks, you will cultivate friendships with the children of other powerful men, you will behave in the manner of a Malfoy, whether you like it or not. No direct mention of Snape, which was probably a bad thing, knowing his father as he did.

He opened the letter that had just arrived, scanned it. The usual things. Plus something else.

“Anything interesting?” asked Millicent.

“My parents want me home for the Easter holiday,” said Draco, frowning slightly.

“Well, you did stay here over Christmas. They probably miss you.”

He laughed, a short, harsh bark. “You obviously don’t know my parents. My mother thinks her duty was completed when I pushed my way out of the womb, and my father thinks I’m a misguided softhearted fool who doesn’t do as he is told.”

She snorted. “Softhearted? You?”

“Compared to my father. Of course, trolls are softhearted compared to him.” He looked at the letter again. “He says there are things we need to talk about now that I’m of age.”

“What, you don’t yet know how babies are made?”

He swatted the letter at her, and she giggled. It was amazing the difference it made to her features, when she smiled; she wasn’t a beauty, never would be one, but happiness seemed to change her face as though it were lit from within. She had never been told, like he had been from the time he was a child, that it was weakness to let emotions show. What a joy it was, to be able to drop that mask with his lover, and to see his lover’s stern and craggy face transform on the rare occasions when Severus allowed himself to smile.

It would be a whole week without that, if he went home for Easter. An entire week with his tightly-controlled parents who dispensed affection grudgingly, as though it were something to be hoarded like gold. Gold. “It’s probably the money. You know, the vast Malfoy family fortune.”

She nodded, her face suddenly serious. “Then you should go.”

“It’ll wait for summer.”

“Are you sure?” She spoke slowly and quietly. “Don’t you know what’s happening? There’s a war coming. There may not be a summer.”

“Of course I know,” he snapped back. “Everybody’s been after me all year to choose sides.”

“So what happens if there’s a war and you and your parents are on different sides?”

Draco considered this for a few moments. It wasn’t a hypothetical question. His father was committed to the bottom of his soul and could never leave Lord Voldemort’s service alive. And as much as Draco told himself that he had not chosen sides yet, that he was just following Snape’s lead until he had to make a real decision, he knew that the decision had already been made. It had seeped into his bones with his lover’s caresses, been whispered into his ear along with the soft night murmurs. He had challenged Severus to care about him, and in return the man had taught him to care about not just himself but his ideals. He could not stand with his father in the war. But he could not stand against his father until it came.

Professor Snape, unsurprisingly, had a completely different opinion.

Draco levered himself out of the bed on his forearms. After worrying the idea in his brain for nearly a week he had finally blurted it out. He’d hoped that if he brought it up as they lay sleepy and sated in bed, Snape might be relaxed enough to listen, but the man had coiled like a snake as soon as the words were out of his mouth. “I’m still their son. We’re not enemies yet.”

“Of course you are,” came the silky voice.“ And if you won’t understand that, you have already lost the battle.”

“He’s not going to kill me.”

The hawk face was grim. “No. He will do worse.”

“You don’t understand my father, Severus. He works by bribes and by threats. If he was going to threaten me he would have done so already, and he already knows that he can’t bribe me to join him. I owe him this visit as an adult. ”He looked down at the pillow. “I owe it to my mother.”

Snape sat upright and glared at him. “You are hopelessly naïve. I understand Lucius far better than you do. It would be a mistake to meet him on his territory.”

Draco’s eyes flashed. “It’s my territory too.”

“Not any more.”

Furious, Draco swung his legs to the floor, snatched up his robe to cover his nakedness. “I know more about being a Malfoy than you ever will.” He paced the small room. “He can’t force me to take the Mark; you told me it has to be accepted by free will. If he puts me under Imperius it won’t do a bit of good.”

“Is your will stronger than his?”

“It has to be.” His voice filled with steel. “It has to be.”

Severus remained silent for a long while. Draco was an arrogant fool if he thought he could come through this intact. Lucius was a master of the psychological. He would shred the boy, tear him apart, leave him gasping and begging to be taken to the Dark Lord. Lucius would win this one, and Severus would lose. And Draco…

He looked at the firm set of his jaw, the high cheekbones that maturity had given new definition. The boy who had come to him three months before would have backed down. He would have accepted Severus’s opinion without a word, would have followed without question. But Draco had changed, he could see that. And that changed the terms of the contest.

This was no longer a grim tug-of-war between Severus and Lucius. It would be a battle fought by Draco against himself. But the stakes were the same. Draco’s future, and maybe his own.

“You have learned something after all.” He did not try to conceal the note of pride that crept into his voice.

Draco nodded. “’Think for yourself.’ I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.”

“I still believe you should not go.”

“I know,” said Draco, dropping his robe to the floor and returning to the bed. “But I’m still going.”

“I know.” He pulled Draco down onto the bed, embraced him tightly. His body could say more than he could bring himself to utter aloud; he willed Draco to feel his thoughts, to sense the emotion that seemed to pour out of his skin like heat. “I will be pleased if you come back.”

“When I come back,” Draco murmured into his ear, running sure hands down his back. He cupped Severus’s buttocks and moved as close as he could. Legs tangled with legs, skin pressed against skin; Draco was hard again, and Severus lightly rolled against his erection, eliciting a hum of pleasure.

“When you come back, yes.” He would try to believe it. He would have to believe it. He traced Draco’s neck with kisses, met his lips, took the mouth that opened to his. Memorize it, memorize it. He drank in Draco’s mouth hungrily, moved to taste his cheek, his hairline, his neck again. Fine silvery hair brushed at his face. He lifted his head to look at the beautiful features tense with concentration on pleasure, the eyes heavy-lidded and half closed, the lips swollen from sweet kisses.

Draco moaned as he ground his cock against Severus’s hip. “Touch me.”

He rolled one leg across Draco’s body, reached past him to the still-open jar on the nightstand, scooped with two fingers. “Here,” he whispered, taking one of Draco’s hands, the one that rested right on the curve of his thigh, spreading the lotion on himself and on the hand that moved closer to where it was needed. “Here,” he whispered again as he shifted his body to allow his lover’s fingers to slip into him, wrapped his leg around his lover’s hip. He gently stroked Draco’s erection, feeling his own body expand and relax, feeling the blood flow through his body.

Draco entered him as reverently as if he were entering a cathedral, Severus thought. As carefully as though they were both made of glass. They rocked together in a slow rhythm born not of urgency or need, but of affection and comfort. Maybe even of love.

“So this is what you feel when you’re inside me,” breathed Draco, grey eyes wide.

“What I feel,” said Severus, “is beyond compare.”

A long, slow exhalation. “Yes.”

For several minutes there was no sound other than the sounds of their bodies moving together. Electricity arced through him with every smooth thrust; it almost seemed that he was both penetrating and being penetrated simultaneously. Looking into Draco’s eyes, he felt as though he could see through them, behind them, as though if they kept moving together in this way they would surely break through into telepathy.

“Yes,” whispered Draco again, his eyes closing tightly. Severus felt the orgasm almost as though it were his own.

I will be pleased if you come back.

I will be desolate if you do not.

The train took him toward London, and home. Not the Hogwarts Express, but a more usual although still magical one, a thrice-weekly run from Hogsmeade. The train mostly carried freight, plus just a few of the older students heading home for the holiday week, and he had a compartment to himself. It would be so much more convenient if he could simply Apparate, but he still had two months to go before the licensing exam, and in any case he wasn’t confident he could handle that distance yet.

He slouched back in his seat, fingering the pendant that hung from a fine silver chain around his neck. A silver serpent, with cunningly worked scales and emerald eyes; Severus had pressed it into his hand the night before.

Draco had looked sharply at him. They’d argued days before about whether he ought to bring any magical protection. He’d thought they had settled the matter.

“Just jewelry, Draco. A token.”

It was a beautiful piece, clearly made by a master craftsman, and in the dim light of the candles it had seemed almost as if it could spring to life.

“It looks hundreds of years old.”

“Nearly a thousand. It has been in my family for a very long time.”

Draco shook his head. “I shouldn’t accept it, then.”

“Consider it a loan, if you like. To be returned when you come back to Hogwarts.”

The silver felt cool against his skin as he returned it to its place under his clothing. He would rather not have to explain it to his parents.

One of his father's London staff met him at the station, and from there it was a quick trip to their town house. His mother was already there, having spent the day shopping in Diagon Alley. She greeted him with a cool kiss on the cheek.

“Taller than ever, I see. It’s just the two of us tonight, darling. Your father is somewhere on Ministry business.”

“On a Saturday?”

“He’s spending far more time here than he is at home these days.” She didn’t sound like she particularly missed his company. “But we’ll all go to Easter services together tomorrow. You’ll be my date for dinner in town, then we’ll floo back to the Manor.”

“I’ve been working on my Apparation. I can make it home from here.”

“Really?” Narcissa sounded amused. “I don’t imagine you’re actually allowed yet, are you?”

Draco smiled, shook his head.

“If you’re a perfectly good son and are terribly nice to me at dinner, we’ll Apparate back. For practice.” She gave him an indulgent smile, but her mind was elsewhere, he could see that. Perhaps on her shopping. She never gave much indication of what went on behind her eyes.

An elegant dinner, at one of wizarding London’s best and most expensive restaurants. Draco was proud to be escorting his mother, who was wearing her blonde hair in a chignon and clothed in a dress that must have come from Paris. They talked of inconsequential things; his friends in school, her charity work.

Narcissa was as good as her word; after the coffee had been served and the check paid, they Apparated back to Malfoy Manor’s receiving room. “Very good, darling. Now, then: Foras gradiamur .” At her words, the door swung open. “That will get you into the rest of the house, or back into the receiving room to Apparate out.”

Lucius came home very late. “Terribly busy, my love,” he said, kissing Narcissa briefly. Draco watched them with new awareness. How distant from each other they seemed. Was it just that they had been married for twenty years? Or was their marriage simply a convenience, a bargain like all the others that were struck within the family?

He shook Draco’s hand, smiled. “I’m glad you made it for a visit. Did you have a good time with your mother?”

Draco said what was expected of him: “London’s always fun when you’re with a pretty girl.” Narcissa laughed, a well-bred tinkle of a laugh.

“I’m sure you are tired. We’ll talk tomorrow after church.” It was a dismissal, but a cordial one. Draco kissed his mother and headed upstairs to his bedroom. How quiet and lonely it seemed, without twenty or thirty of his fellow students knocking about the hallways. And without Severus to share it with, his bed was lonelier still.

In the morning, before church, he penned a quick letter to Severus. Not that he could call him that in his letter, of course; the need to be discreet was even greater here. Dear Professor Snape, have arrived safely , and so on.

There was so much more he would have liked to write. I miss you already. I wish I could hear your voice. I wish I could feel your hand run down the curve of my back. But he contented himself with scribbling a few notes about intending to work on his potions homework, sealed the scroll, and sent it off with a house owl.

Draco was aware of the scrutiny of dozens of pairs of eyes as the Malfoy family swept into St. Paul’s. He recognized Millicent's parents, and Gregory's; most of the wizarding families in the area who did not scorn religion belonged to this small, discreet Anglican church. To nonmagical eyes it appeared to be an ivy-covered ruin, but it had stood since the fifteenth century; some of the Malfoy headstones in the graveyard were nearly that old as well. The hard bench of the family pew was as familiar to him as their sitting-room sofa, and as the words of the Book of Common Prayer flowed around him he found that his mouth formed the responses without his having to think about them.

The Malfoy family, like most, was not particularly religious, but they had been members of the church for centuries, and were not about to change a tradition. They were the foremost family of the local wizarding community, what passed for nobility in these parts, thought Draco. He was playing the role of the dutiful son, just as his parents were playing the roles of the magnanimous landowner and his gracious wife. An easy role to slip into, one he had been trained for from birth. It was what was required of him as a Malfoy, required of them all.

After the service they stopped to speak with the vicar for a few moments, who looked pleased to see Draco with his parents. “You’ve grown into a fine young man. I hope to see you married here one day.”

Draco looked to the floor, embarrassed, as Lucius answered. “Soon enough, soon enough.”

At home it was a light meal, soufflé and spring vegetables, and then Narcissa went to her room to catch up on correspondence, while Lucius excused himself to his study. “And Draco, if you could come down about five?”

“Yes, Father.”

Draco knocked lightly, then pushed open the door.

“Cognac?”

“Please.” Draco was oddly gratified to see his father pour him a drink in the same size glass he used for himself, instead of in the smaller cordial glasses that he had always been given before.

Lucius sat back in his leather chair. His expression seemed carefully neutral, but Draco still had the feeling of being an insect caught under glass. Father regarded son for a long moment.

“You chose not to join our circle at your birthday. Will you join us now?”

So it would come to this, after all. “I respectfully decline.” It was an effort to keep his voice steady. He had not realized how difficult it would be to say no to his father. He felt as though he were seven, not seventeen.

“May I inquire as to why?”

“I simply don’t want to. I don’t care to kill perfectly good wizards that happen to have the wrong parentage.”

“So you’ve taken up the righteous cause of the Muggles and Mudbloods?”

He shrugged. “Muggles are not worth thinking about. But it doesn’t take pure blood to do magic. I don’t count Mudbloods among my friends, but I don’t think they deserve to die.”

“You have been led astray by your so-called friends.” A sly look crossed Lucius’s face. “Or perhaps by your so-called lover.”

Draco refused to react. “My friends have taught me to overcome my prejudices.”

“Have they, now.” Lucius sipped from his cognac. “It appears to me that they have taught you to forget your heritage. To forget where your loyalties lie. To disobey your father.”

“I’m loyal to what I believe in.” Be loyal to your own heart.

“And what, precisely, do you believe in?”

“Honor,” said Draco, defiantly. “Ambition. Glory.”

“Love?” said Lucius, mockingly.

He remained silent.

“Severus Snape.” Lucius spit out the name as though it tasted sour in his mouth. “I hope you are not so naïve as to believe that he loves you.”

Only conjecture, thought Draco. Stay calm.

“He’s a liar, you know. And a traitor. He was a spy for that cretin Dumbledore. He’s very good at playing a part to get what he wants. And do you know what that is?” Lucius was smiling now, a thin, hard smile.

“He’s my Head of House.”

“He’s fucking you,” said Lucius, deliberately. “But it’s not you he really wants, Draco. He’s fucking you because you remind him of me.” His eyes were gleaming like a predator’s; he was a pale-furred cat, about to pounce.

“That’s absurd.” The words tore out of him involuntarily. He had never heard his father speak like this, crude words in softly menacing tones.

“Is it? Tell me, Draco, does he still purr like a kitten when you lick his collarbone? Have you noticed yet how much he loves to have his nipples bitten? Does he still open his eyes wide when he comes?”

Draco looked at the floor. A large ball of something unpleasant seemed to have lodged in his stomach.

“He’s a good lover, isn’t he, Draco?” Lucius leaned forward, his mouth still twisted in that parody of a smile. “I had him for nearly five years. He was so upset when I left him. I don’t think he ever got over it.”

The ball in his stomach grew larger. Severus. Father. The delicate glass shattered, covering his hand with blood and cognac.

“Do you like the pretty design I cut into him? He won’t get it healed because it reminds him of me. Like you do.”

“Bastard,” Draco whispered. The ground seemed to have fallen away from him.

“Does he ever forget, and call you Lucius?”

He was almost crying. “Bastard. Bastard.”

“Him or me, Draco?”

“Both of you.” It was an anguished moan, hardly even words. He couldn’t breathe. Severus. Father.

Lucius’s voice was almost a purr. “He didn’t tell you, did he. I didn’t think he would. He’s using you. But I’ll help you get back at him.” He placed a hand on Draco’s shoulder.

Draco flinched violently. “Get away from me. You bastard.” He fumbled in his pocket for his wand, but he was trembling. And Lucius was faster.

“Stupefy.”

Chapter 6

Draco woke up in his room. Night had fallen; the moon had already risen and spread a thin glow across the grounds outside his window. A tray of food lay on the bedside table.

His head hurt, and he felt the vestiges of dizziness fall away from him as he sat up on his bed. Then the memories came flooding back. His father. His father and Severus, his Severus, had been lovers.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he whispered into the air. His father’s voice in his head answered for him. It had all been a game. A lie, after all.

I fell in love with you, he thought despondently. And you let me. I saw it in your eyes, that you wanted me, and I walked right into the trap. My father to the life again, and in love with you again.

He got to his feet, walked to the window, looked out. “Swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon.” They hadn’t sworn their love, nothing like that. Neither of them had actually said the word. He’d thought they hadn’t needed to. Oh, it hurt, it hurt so bad, like a knife in the gut, to think that those caresses were not really meant for him at all.

He must have missed dinner, but the cold roast on the tray did not appeal to him. A drink would be nice – remembering, he looked down at his hand and noticed the dried blood. He reached for his wand. It wasn’t in his pocket; he remembered trying to draw it, and his father reaching out…

He shook his head, went into the bathroom and ran water over his hand. It looked much worse than it was; only a few superficial scratches, which would heal quickly without magic. Not like Severus’s white lines of hardened skin. Not enough to remind him. As if he needed anything to remind him of this.

Draco tried the door, more out of a sense of completeness than anything else, and was unsurprised to find it locked. Fine. He didn’t want to talk to anyone, not to his cruel bastard of a father, not to that distant bitch who called herself his mother, not to anyone. No, that wasn’t quite true. Severus.

Slumping down at his writing desk, he started a letter. Dear Professor Snape. No, cross that out, start again. Dear Severus, he wrote. I have become aware of a certain previous relationship. No. My father tells me. No. I hate you. No. I love you .

No.

After half an hour’s worth of crumpled false starts, he returned to the bed and stared at the ceiling. He was still there when Lucius walked in. “Good, you’re awake.”

“Fuck off.”

“Must you be so dramatic?” Lucius crossed over to the writing desk and started rifling through the scraps of parchment. “I see that you anticipated me. A very good start, indeed.”

“Fuck off.” His voice sounded weary in his own ears.

Lucius turned toward him. His pale skin and blond hair seemed to float above his dark robe, a malevolent ghost. “I can tell you what to write that will hurt him the most.”

“Fuck off.”

“I would think you’d want to hurt him,” Lucius said, his voice low and almost caressing. “After what he’s done to you. And to me.”

Draco did not answer.

“Well. This one will do quite nicely,” he said, choosing a letter from the pile. “Although I need you to add a few more things.” He drew his wand almost casually. “Imperio !”

It was a relief to give up the bleak thoughts circling in his mind like wolves, to let them go and accept the soft oblivion of Imperius. Draco rose from the bed and crossed to the writing desk. He took a quill, dipped it in ink. The drone of his father’s voice wrapped him around like a thick winter cloak, like wool and silk, and he leaned back into it and watched the quill in his hand make words on the parchment. When the page was dry, Lucius leaned over to take it and rolled it tightly, wrapping it with a silver ribbon, then slid it into a pocket.

“Now, then.” Lucius’s voice continued to purr in his ear. Draco felt something being placed in his hand, looked incuriously at it and saw that it was his wand. “You and I have business tonight.”

He opened the door, and Draco followed him through.

The students scattered as Snape strode through the hallway, black cloak swirling around him, black thunderclouds on his face. He spat out the password at the gargoyle which guarded the headmaster’s office, then took the spiral staircase two steps at a time.

Dumbledore, sitting at his desk with a cup of tea, looked up.

“There is trouble,” Snape said without preamble.

“I rather thought there might be,” Dumbledore said, mildly.

Snape slumped into the chair opposite. “So did I.”

“Do not blame yourself.”

“And who else shall I blame?” His voice was harsh in the small room. “I should have kept him here. Appealed to his emotions, if nothing else. I could have –“

Dumbledore interrupted him. “You could have manipulated him as Lucius did to you, yes. And then you would have become like Lucius. What value is there in that?”

“I would have saved him.”

“And lost yourself.”

“At the moment, both of us are lost.” He pulled a scroll from his pocket, then hesitated. “I would prefer not to show this to you.”

“I don’t need to see it, Severus,” Dumbledore said gently.

Snape neither needed nor wanted to look at it again. The words were already seared on his heart. It wasn’t me you wanted, after all. “Lucius apparently told him of our past…history. And twisted the knife, as only he can.” Snape sighed. “They are lodging a complaint against me. Unprofessional conduct.”

“Do you truly believe Draco will so quickly take his father’s side?”

“He no longer trusts me. Lucius will mold him to his own will.” In all things.

“Then you must prevent it.”

Snape slammed his fist on the table so hard that the teacup rattled. “I have spent the past year trying to prevent it. I have given more of myself than I knew existed.” His anguish was palpable, a living thing in the room. He could feel it seeping out from his pores and taking shape in the space next to him, pressing back upon his body. “And I failed.”

Dumbledore was quiet for a long moment before speaking. “Severus. Do you remember the day we spoke by the lake?”

“As if I could ever forget.” That was the day that it had all seemed too overwhelming to bear. Lucius’s casual cruelty, Lord Voldemort’s increasingly irrational demands, the growing realization that his life had taken a direction he no longer agreed with but was powerless to change. His work at St. Mungo’s had been his refuge, where among the alembics and retorts he could absorb himself in something completely outside that mad world of blood and death. Until Voldemort decided to take that over too, to subvert Snape’s work to his own purposes. The orders were distasteful, but he did not see that he had any choice other than to obey. Or perhaps to kill himself.

It was in that state that his former headmaster had seen him, old wise Dumbledore with his uncanny ability to see right through a person to his heart. No doubt a century of dealing with dissembling students had given him this skill. Dumbledore had been on a visit to the hospital administrator, noticed Snape in passing, and immediately drew him aside.

Snape had tried to run in the other direction, back down the hallway to his laboratory, the one place he felt safe – or had, until the most recent orders from Voldemort. But Dumbledore had persuaded him somehow, and they’d Apparated together to the gates of Hogwarts. As he passed through those gates again for the first time since leaving school, he felt the sanctuary of the place enveloping him. Another place one could be safe, he remembered thinking. They had walked down to the lake, where they had sat and talked of inconsequential things until somehow the dam inside him burst open and he had laid out his troubles at Dumbledore’s feet.

The headmaster was still looking at him with a soft expression. “Why did you agree to come with me that day?”

Snape pushed the hair from his face irritably. “I don’t know. I was desperate, I suppose. Confused and upset.”

“You came because I cared about you. My students are as important to me as if they were my own children, you know. And love is a powerful force.”

It sounded odd to Snape, to hear someone talk of love so easily. Dumbledore had been almost a father figure to him. As he should have been to Draco. And Dumbledore had saved him, had hired him on at Hogwarts so that he no longer needed to do Voldemort’s dirty work at St. Mungo’s. He had helped him regain his own self-respect. And in fierce gratitude, Snape had offered himself as a spy against the Death Eaters. Perhaps that was love too, in a way.

“Love is a powerful force,” the headmaster repeated. “As powerful as magic, in its own way. And it can overcome the most powerful evil.”

“I tried.” That was as close to an admission of love that he could make.

“You must keep trying. He needs your strength.”

Snape made a small motion with the scroll in his hand. “He doesn’t want it.”

“No, Severus. Lucius does not want him to have it.” Dumbledore rose and moved to the bookshelf that lined one wall of his office. He ran a hand across a row of spines, selected a volume, began to leaf through it. “Love and magic combined are even more powerful, you know. Tell me,” he continued, peering at Snape through his half-moon glasses, “does he have anything belonging to you in his possession?”

Snape thought of a silver serpent with emerald eyes. And for the first time that day, he smiled.

The headache that pounded in Draco’s skull rivaled the worst hangover he’d ever had. He rolled over on his side to avoid the sunlight lancing through the window, and discovered that the ache extended through his entire body. A hangover plus having been mowed down by a hippogriff, maybe. The idea of getting out of bed held absolutely no appeal whatsoever.

It had been a horrible night, to cap a horrible day. His father had taken him down to his study, where he had outfitted them both with hooded black robes, and then to the receiving room. They had Apparated to a field somewhere – his father had held him, controlling him – where a group of standing stones kept vigil under a copse of trees.

An animal howled, and he realized through the haze of Imperius that it was a wolf, bound to the altar-like stone in the center of the circle. “Silence it,” whispered Lucius, and Draco had raised his wand in obedience.

His father had whispered again, and the syrupy feeling in his limbs had extended, slid outward, made him move across the circle of stones. He had done things with his wand – he wasn’t sure what they were. He was only responding to the voice that directed him, moving and speaking and watching as cold fire arced from his wand, caressed the twitching animal splayed across the stone.

Energies had returned to him out of the wolf’s agony, circling around and through his and his father’s bodies, sparking oddly against his bound consciousness. It hurt, and it felt good, and it seemed as though it ought to have been quite scary but for the solidity of his father’s thoughts holding his own in place. A final bolt of light, a murmur in his ear, and they had vanished again from the woods. Back at Malfoy Manor he somehow had stumbled upstairs in his father’s arms, and fallen into bed.

He cautiously sat up, then immediately had to fight back nausea, and staggered to the toilet just in time. In the mirror he could see his face drawn and paler than usual, with unfamiliar lines around haunted eyes. There was something new in his eyes, he thought. Or maybe something missing.

It was late, probably past noon, he decided as he tried to gauge the sun’s position from the shadows cast by the trees outside his window. He was still in his clothing, although the black robe he’d worn the night before was gone. As was his wand. The untouched roast had been replaced by crusty bread and cheese. The door was locked, again.

When his father finally came into the room it was already nearly dusk. “Eat. We have another busy night.”

Draco looked up wearily from where he sat by the writing desk. He wanted to run at his father, hit him with his fists, but somehow he couldn’t even summon up enough energy to say the obscenities that bubbled behind his lips. Despite this, he found himself automatically going to the bedside table, taking a hunk of cheese, stuffing it into his mouth. The water in the carafe was flat and almost warm, but he drank it down.

“Good. You must be strong to perform Dark magic. You need to show it who is the master, control it before it controls you. I will not always be there to assist.”

“Assistance,” said Draco, slowly. “I thought it was force.”

“You could have died from the wolf’s rebound energy when you took its life. In time, you’ll learn to channel it on your own.”

“I wouldn’t have done it on my own.”

“But you will.” Lucius smiled, showing teeth which seemed, to Draco, to be oddly like the wolf’s. “Every time you use Dark magic, you bind a little piece of your soul to the darkness. And to me.” He reached out, ran a finger down Draco’s jaw. “I do this because I love you, Draco. We will be more powerful together than you can possibly imagine.”

Draco felt the power behind his father’s hand on his face. Power, and an affection which took him completely by surprise. He wanted to throw himself into his father’s arms, be held as though he were a child; a brief, foolish thought, he realized. His father had never held him. Not even when he had been a child.

“It is time,” said Lucius, stepping back, and the moment was over. He looked intently in Draco’s eyes for a moment, then sighed and pointed his wand. “Imperio !”

Snape scowled at the book on his table. The Arithmancy portion of the spell was straightforward if complex, and although it had taken most of the afternoon, he’d worked out the equations to his satisfaction. Charms, however, had never been his forte. Foolish wand-waving, he’d always thought; but by dinnertime he was about ready to break his wand, foolish or otherwise, out of sheer frustration.

Striding into the Great Hall, he caught the Headmaster’s eyes and shook his head slightly as he approached the table, heading for his usual spot between Minerva and Irma. What he needed…of course. Changing direction suddenly, he moved to sit next to the Charms professor instead.

“Filius,” he said, sliding into his seat. “I am having difficulty with the charms component of a spell. I would be grateful of your help.”

Professor Flitwick chuckled. “Ah, Severus. I never would have believed that you would be asking me to help you.”

That was an understatement, no doubt. They had always been on good terms with each other, but he'd never made a secret of his disdain for the other man’s specialty. It was galling to have to ask for assistance with a branch of magic he’d always regarded as second-rate.

He was also reluctant to expose any more of his personal life than absolutely necessary, particularly to a colleague who was not a close friend. Professor Dumbledore was the only person at Hogwarts who knew of his relationship with Draco, and that was, in Snape’s view, already one person too many. But if Lucius went ahead with his threats, everyone would know.

Although if he could get this damned spell to work, it was likely that everyone would know as well. If Draco could fight off Lucius’s influence and return to school whole. If Draco could forgive him. Because the love needed for this type of magic was not a love that could be satisfied with midnight trysts and secretive affection. If he was perfectly honest with himself – and with Draco – he would have to admit this. And Severus Snape was nothing if not perfectly honest.

Slowly he became aware that Flitwick was looking at him expectantly. He sighed. “I’m trying to set up Amplexus Profundo.” He ignored Flitwick’s raised eyebrow at the name of the spell. “But I’m not feeling the proper energy flow, so obviously I’m doing something wrong.”

“May I ask…no.” Flitwick chewed thoughtfully on a chicken leg. “Have you accounted for the bearing and distance of … of the subject?”

“I am asking you, not Ada Vector,” Snape said pointedly.

“What are you using for the nodes?”

“The reception node is a piece of jewelry. Silver, very old, in my family for generations.”

Flitwick nodded. “Silver is excellent. No problems there, especially with the family connection. And the transmission node?”

“An item of clothing.” He’d snuck into Draco’s room, feeling vaguely ashamed of breaching his privacy, and taken a silk tie.

“Intimate clothing?” Another raised eyebrow.

Snape refused to blush. “An accessory.”

“Well, that’s your problem right there. Clothing doesn’t have enough structure, really. Something solid, that’s what you need.”

Something solid. Snape tried to remember what else had been in Draco’s room. Books, certainly, but books didn’t have the proper emotional connection to the subject. He couldn’t very well remove a piece of furniture. “A cauldron, maybe?”

“You would think of that, wouldn’t you?” The tiny professor’s laugh sounded like a first-year girl’s giggle. “It would certainly work well if you were the receptor. Is your subject as devoted to potions as you are?”

A snort. “Devoted to Quidditch, more likely.”

“Then that’s your answer. Use the subject’s broomstick.”

Dinner forgotten, Snape was out the door in a heartbeat.

The circle of standing stones looked somehow malignant in the moonlight. Living tendrils of vines held a young boy fast to the central stone, his head lolling against his shoulder. Much like his own head lolled against his father’s shoulder, Draco thought muzzily, but this boy was younger, perhaps only eight or nine years old. His nude body was still undeveloped, a splash of innocence against the darkness of the altar.

"We will do this together, as before," whispered Lucius. Draco felt the words more than heard them as they sank into the indistinct cloud that his mind seemed to inhabit during Imperius. "Walk widdershins to the third stone so we form the sextus angle. On my signal, begin the transfere victus ."

He began moving dreamily toward the third stone, feeling the strands of the spell connecting him with his father shift and elongate. Like strands of a spider's web, he thought, and he was the fly, twisting with the vibrations sent down each silken strand by the movement of the spider.

And then it was like a breath of wind slipped between the fine threads of the web and moved him to a different beat, just far off enough that he could detect that it didn't come from the spider at all. It seemed to push right at his chest, at his heart, sending him swaying in the web. The wind swirled around his mind and the cloud seemed to thin. He saw the unconscious boy at the center of the circle.

"Who is he, Father?"

He could hear Lucius's indrawn breath. "Only a Muggle. An unimportant boy, hardly more than an animal, really. You should not care about him." It was a command.

He remembered the wolf. An animal. This was not an animal.

"A boy."

"A Muggle, Draco. Yesterday an animal, today a Muggle, tomorrow a Mudblood who doesn't deserve to be a wizard. Each will strengthen us further. And when you help us bring the traitor to our circle, we will all share in his strength."

"You want me to kill. A boy." The words came with difficulty, and even as he spoke them he could feel the urge to speak slip away.

"Walk widdershins to the third stone. Now."

The cloud thickened again, the strands grew tighter. Draco tried to remember why he had been so sure, just a moment ago, that he should not walk to the third stone. But it didn't really matter. The spider was plucking at the web, and he was vibrating, twisting, moving to the spider's will.

His wand hand lifted itself, pointed at the boy. "Transfere sanguinis." Red fire sparked across the gap and then between himself and his father, a bloody triangle. "Transfere suspiritus." Blue fire joined the red, the two strands of energy writhing together like snakes across the boy's twitching body. "Transfere victus ," he finally heard himself say, and as he watched the boy's chest jerk upward in agony he felt the power return to him again, like the wolf's power but stronger, sweeter, darker. White light caressed him from his groin to his fingertips. He could snap that spiderweb now, twist away with ease, but he no longer wanted to escape. There was no reason to escape. The spider was glowing too, with the same white light, and he didn't want to twist away because he somehow knew was no longer a fly. He was another spider. And the web belonged to both of them.

Snape felt the contact break, and sat back, dizzy. He should not have rushed off like that without eating, not before performing a complex spell like this one. He had only been able to hold it for a few moments, fighting hard the entire time against a will that opposed his own. It must have been Lucius, he thought. He hoped it was Lucius. If it had been Draco, then all this was for nothing.

His sleep was filled with nightmares, dark and foreboding, and he woke far too early. No matter. He slipped down to the kitchens for breakfast, the house-elves piling his plate high with eggs and sausages, then returned to his rooms.

Since Hogwarts was on Easter holiday, his responsibilities were light. He could spend the entire day holding the spell if he wanted to -- if it were possible. Even without opposition, the spell required an enormous amount of personal energy, and he wondered how long he'd be able to sustain the connection. No matter. He'd hold it as long as he could, then rest, then do it again.

Draco's broom sat in the center of a chalked circle on the floor. After erasing the symbols he'd drawn around the circle's perimeter the night before, he carefully redrew them, then replenished the elemental cups with fresh water and newly-sparked fire. As he lowered himself to sit cross-legged, facing the circle, he could feel the faint tingle of the energy inherent in the diagram; it seemed to him to be almost a restless thing, pushing against its confines, seeking direction.

Snape touched his wand lightly to the broomstick, breathing slowly and deliberately. Concentrating on each inhalation and exhalation, he consciously relaxed his body, emptied his mind. Then he visualized Draco, as though he were sitting before him; he imagined the white-blond hair falling across the brow, the half-cocky, half-vulnerable smile, the slender body in a casual, regal slouch. He imagined his great-grandmother's silver pendant, the emerald-eyed snake on a silver chain, draped around the pale throat. He thought of the skin under the chain moving to the beat of the pulse in that throat, the slight flicker of motion that he could feel when he bent his lips to Draco's neck.

His lips moved to form the first words of the spell, and he remembered watching Draco fly in a Quidditch match, intent on his golden quarry. He thought about Draco's deftness with his fingers, chopping ingredients for a potion, caressing his lover's body. The way he threw his head back and moaned with pleasure when Snape kissed him along the ridge of his hipbone. The way he moved. The way he spoke.

He spoke the second set of incantations, and thought about the determination in Draco's eyes when he had asked to become his lover. The cadences of his voice when he talked about the things he believed in. In his mind he imagined all the things he admired in Draco, the qualities he loved, the failings he accepted.

He imagined them all filling his heart and expanding outward in a shining ray of pure emotion, channeled from his heart through the broomstick in front of him and into the silver serpent on his lover's neck. As he whispered the final phrases he felt the energies gather around him and pour through him; a shining ray of pure emotion.

Chapter 7

Despite another headache, Draco woke feeling more refreshed than he had in days. What wonderful dreams he'd had. He'd dreamed of flying on the Quidditch pitch, zooming up and plucking the Snitch from the sky, landing to applause from his housemates. He'd dreamed of Professor McGonagall giving him full marks for a perfect transfiguration, of his mother smiling with approval as she smoothed his hair back from his forehead. And just before waking, he had dreamed about Severus.

In the dream, they were lying entangled on the big bed in Severus's room, bare legs wrapped around bare legs, arms around each other's body. He felt Severus's dark hair brush his skin, felt his lips near his ear. "I love you. You must believe this. I love you. You must know this." Strong, gentle fingers turned his jaw so he was looking into those dark eyes. "I love you. Know this and believe this. Be strong, my love."

No surprise it was a dream, Draco thought with a soft, rueful smile as he stretched in his bed, eyes still closed against the sunlight. Severus would probably turn to stone if he ever actually said those words. Still, it was warming to hear them, if only in a dream. What a pity the man himself wasn't there next to him. It would have been nice to do something with this morning erection.

He swung his legs out of bed and felt the familiar pain and nausea, not quite as bad this time but bad enough, and as it flowed into his body, the memories overtook the pleasant dreams. He'd killed a boy, this time. Taken a life at the behest of his father, that cruel bastard who taunted him, manipulated him, separated him from his lover.

No, wait. It had been Severus who had manipulated him. The man who had been his father's lover, who was only trying to recapture his faded past, to revenge himself upon the man who had tired of him.

I love you. Know this and believe this.

Dreams were cruel, weren't they?

Be true to your own heart.

But if Severus had only been using him, mused Draco as he showered, why had he been so insistent on Draco's own moral growth? Why had Severus encouraged him to think critically, not just about the ideals of his father and his cronies, but about his own ideals as well? He hadn't taken from him. He had given.

Draco closed his eyes, feeling the warm water cascade down his skin, the skin that Severus had traced with long fingertips. He could almost feel those fingertips brushing against him. As he scrubbed his body with scented soap, his hands ran over the necklace dangling against his chest. Oh. His eyes flew open.

How could he have forgotten, how could he have disbelieved? The water sluiced him clean and he stepped to the mirror, rubbing a soft towel roughly against his skin. The serpent pendant nestled gently in the hollow below his collarbone. "He loves me," Draco murmured, "he does."

And Father was a damn liar, and an evil bastard besides, forcing him into the uncertain embrace of the Dark Arts. "Every time you use Dark magic, you bind a little piece of your soul to the darkness," his father had said.

"Damn him," said Draco aloud to the mirror.

The silver serpent's eyes seemed to glow, and it seemed to him as though a sort of strength seeped into him, bubbling through his veins like butterbeer or cognac. He stood a little straighter. It was time to return to the light.

When Lucius stepped into the room that night, Draco was ready, dressed in a dark robe, eyes downcast. I am strong, he thought, I am loved. Then Lucius spoke, and the Imperius fluttered down on him like a net. For a moment, he almost panicked. But then the warm glow pulsed through his body again, and he could see the holes between the strands of the net, holes big enough to slide through. All it would take would be one push, and he'd be free.

He was careful to arrange his features in the same dazed look he'd given his father the night before, and the night before that. Lucius looked at him suspiciously; no doubt he could feel that the mental bonds were not as tight as they should be, but after a moment he extended Draco's wand to him, and turned to lead him down the hallway to the reception room.

Draco took a deep breath and reached for the holes in the net, slipping through like water. Extending his wand, he whispered, " Stupefy ." He stepped over Lucius's limp body, and did not look back.

" Foras gradiamur ," he said at the door of the receiving room, which opened to admit him. It was going to be too far, he knew. But what choice did he have? He clasped one hand around the silver snake at his throat, closed his eyes and centered himself, and Apparated to just outside the Hogwarts gate.

The pain hit him as soon as he popped back into existence, driving him to the ground in front of the sentry gargoyle. He had just time to croak, "Draco…Malfoy…" before the world went black.  

The contact broke abruptly, and Snape sighed, slumping his tense shoulders. He had done virtually nothing all day other than maintain the Amplexus Profundo; while concentrating, he could hold his body's needs at bay, but now the need to eat, to piss, to sleep all came on him at once. As he made his way to the toilet, he wondered what it was that had broken the spell. Lucius again?

He had just returned from the kitchens when his fireplace flared and the Headmaster's face appeared. "Severus. Young Malfoy is in the hospital wing. You should go to him now."

The hospital wing. He didn't want to think about what could have happened as he strode down the corridor. When he entered the room, Madam Pomfrey was bending over a bed; he felt a pang at the sight of familiar white-blond hair on the pillow.

Pomfrey straightened at his approach. "He's been asking for you."

"What happened?"

Her mouth tightened in disapproval. "Splinched, and no mistake. I had my work cut out for me, I can tell you." She shook her head. "And he's not licensed yet, of course. I am certain there will be a severe penalty."

"I imagine there were extenuating circumstances," he said, pushing past her. "Am I right?"

This last was said to Draco, who looked up from his bed weakly. His grey eyes were bloodshot and his face paler than usual, but he managed a smile at the sight of the other man.

"He was going to make me kill again." It was a faint whisper.

Snape did not miss the "again," but did not want to press him. Not yet. He looked so vulnerable, almost swallowed up by the white bedclothes, but his chin still had a proud, defiant tilt to it, the Malfoy arrogance undiminished by the horrors he'd undoubtedly been through. He wanted to sweep Draco up in his arms, but contented himself with reaching for his hand and giving it a discreet squeeze.

"You love me," whispered Draco. So much for discretion, thought Snape wryly, as Madam Pomfrey's face turned pink.

"Is there something going on that I should know about?" she asked, suspiciously.

"Nothing at all, Poppy," came a cheery voice from the doorway. Albus Dumbledore entered the room, smiling, and Snape relaxed a fraction. "Although there is the small matter of this letter I received this afternoon from the Board of Governors."

Snape gave him a sharp look. "You didn't tell me."

"You were busy. And I suspect the question is now moot."

"I won't testify," murmured Draco.

"I rather hope that you will," said Snape, his mouth curling into a sneer. "Although not against me."

Dumbledore sat on the edge of the next bed, arranging his robes rather fussily. "You left your home quite abruptly,"

Madam Pomfrey frowned. "Albus, he's still quite weak."

"I'm fine." Draco's voice sounded shaky, but his mouth was set in a determined line. He struggled to sit up among the pillows. "My father. He put me under Imperius. I killed a wolf and a Muggle."

"Will you tell me about it?" His voice was gentle.

Draco looked at Madam Pomfrey, and the headmaster followed his glance. "Poppy, can you leave us for a bit?"

She looked at Snape appraisingly for a long moment, then nodded curtly. "Don't tire him."

When she had left the room, Draco glanced quickly at Dumbledore before turning his grey eyes on Snape. "He told me that you had been lovers."

"A long time ago. And 'lover' is not the appropriate word." He ran a hand through his hair. More explanation would be required. He wondered if the boy still believed the angry words he'd written, fueled by Lucius's accusations and half-truths. "I'll tell you about it later. Right now, we need to hear what he did to you."

Slowly, Draco recounted the events of the past several days. Snape could see the emotions playing in his face as he talked, his embarrassment at having been misled and used by Lucius eventually turning into a quiet, controlled anger. Good. Anger could be exploited. He felt proud of Draco; even with the support of the energy he'd channeled towards him, it must have taken a great deal of focus and effort to throw off the Imperius and escape. It would have taken courage to defy Lucius, and a confidence in his own sense of morality, a sense which, Snape told himself, he had something to do with developing. That Draco could acknowledge he'd been wrong, and move past it, was the hardest step of all, and the most important.

The headmaster seemed to know this too, and although he was frowning, his eyes were soft. "It is difficult to make the choice between what is expected and what is right, Draco. You've done well. But I fear that you are now in some danger."

"He wouldn't…" Draco's voice trailed off. Would he? It occurred to him that a week ago he would have said, no, Father would not use an Unforgivable curse against his son. He would not force his son to kill. He would not lie about his son's lover in order to tear them apart. And he would have been wrong, so wrong.

"Your testimony could send him to Azkaban."

He nodded, thoughtfully. The enormity of his choice was clear to him now. Gamble on his father's love, or betray it? He looked at Snape, whose dark eyes blazed with intensity. He could practically hear the man's velvet voice, whispering to him: "Be true to your own heart."

Draco leaned back against the pillows. "Yes. And good riddance."  

Lucius Malfoy swept dramatically into the headmaster's office, blond hair loose and eyes flashing. In regal purple robes and a matching embroidered cloak, he looked every inch the affronted aristocrat.

He approached the headmaster, voice quivering with practiced outrage. "How could you have let this happen?"

Albus Dumbledore looked up from his desk. "Care for some tea?"

"We can dispense with your games, old man." He tapped the scroll in his hand against the desk. "My son has informed me that he is ready to testify against that…that pederast." His lips twisted in scorn.

"Are you quite positive that's exactly what he wrote?" Snape's voice came from the shadows, idle and unconcerned, as he uncoiled himself from where he'd been leaning against the wall.

"I would say that it's nice to see you, Severus, but it's not worth the lie." He looked around the room. "The governors aren't here yet?"

Snape smiled, showing stained teeth. "We have other business planned, Lucius. Your son is as cunning a Slytherin as you ever were."

"You will stay away from my son." He scowled at Snape for a moment, looking down his elegant nose, then turned to Dumbledore. "Is this going to be a waste of my time?"

Albus sighed and motioned to Fawkes, who sat preening himself on a perch by the bookshelf. The phoenix squawked and flew off to the next room in a cloud of red feathers; a moment later, Draco entered, pale but erect, flanked by two men in Auror's robes. Fawkes fluttered above them for a moment, then returned to his perch.

Lucius's eyes narrowed. "Where are the governors? What is this, Draco?"

Draco looked at Snape, who nodded slightly in encouragement, and then back at his father. He lifted his chin slightly. "I told them. Under Veritaserum."

Lucius smiled. "So, Albus. Your pet spy is now exposed for the deviant he is. Will you be sacking him immediately, then?"

A low, dark chuckle came from the corner where Snape lounged. "Ah, Lucius. You just can't believe that other minds are as devious as your own, can you?"

"Wait," said one of the Aurors, looking at Draco. "Is there more to this than you have told us?"

"Did he tell you that his teacher made inappropriate advances to him?" snapped Lucius.

Draco looked straight at his father. "Professor Snape did not make inappropriate advances to me." Snape silently thanked Draco for not continuing the sentence. It had been a risk; their planning had been constrained by the constant presence of Poppy and Albus, and it had occurred to him more than once that Draco might have been poisoned enough by Lucius's insinuations to want to bring Snape down as well.

Snape's eyes went from one Malfoy to the other. Draco carried himself like his father, with inborn confidence; his demeanor would give him away as his father's son even without the identical blond hair and fine features. But seeing them in the room together somehow diminished rather than enhanced the resemblance, thought Snape. The planes of Draco's face seemed nobler, less dissipated; his eyes burned with a steadier fire than the crafty flicker behind Lucius's deliberately bland gaze.

The Auror drew his wand. "Mr. Malfoy, we have taken testimony as to your involvement with Voldemort and with the Dark Arts. We have examined your son's wand and the spells cast with it. We have reason to believe that you are a Death Eater, and under our authority we are taking you in to the Ministry for further questioning."

Snape watched with satisfaction as Lucius's face turned a very deep shade of red, which did not match his robes in the least.

The knock on his door was not unexpected. Draco had been released just that afternoon from Madam Pomfrey's care; it had been two days since he'd splinched himself, eight hours since he'd sent his father to a Ministry cell. Five days since Draco had left Hogwarts with naïve good intentions. A week since they had been together and not under the watchful eye of Madam Pomfrey, or Albus, or the Ministry Aurors.

He opened the door, stepped back. There had been just enough truth among Lucius's lies that he did not feel he had the right to move first. Draco knew how he felt; he'd sent every bit of it through the Amplexus Profundo. It was up to Draco now to decide if he still wanted the man who had been the lover of the father he'd just damned.

"Severus." Draco breathed his name as though it were a charm, every syllable laden with meaning. He moved into the room with easy, confident grace, wrapped his arms around Snape's waist, buried his face against his shoulder.

So this was his answer. Snape reached an arm around Draco's shoulders, held him for a long moment. "I am pleased that you came back," he murmured.

"So am I," said Draco. "For a while I wasn't sure…oh, I was a fool," he said, his voice bitter. He pulled away from Snape's arms. "I should have listened to you."

"You did."

"Not soon enough."

"Listen, Draco." Snape drew him close again. "You have earned the right to make mistakes by proving you can learn from them. I would sooner see you choose your path through your own actions than see you blindly follow another."

"Even you."

"Even me. Although I would not object should you blindly follow me into the bedroom." He lifted Draco's jaw with a fingertip, searched his eyes. "But perhaps I owe you an explanation first."

"You can explain in bed." Draco kissed him on the cheek, then moved toward the bedroom door, unfastening his robes and letting them drop to the floor in his wake. "Gods, Severus, I missed you so much."

"And I you. Although your letter suggested otherwise."

Draco sat on the edge of the bed and ran a hand through his blond hair. "I don't even know which one he sent. I wrote dozens, I think. I wanted to kill you for toying with me."

"I am fortunate that you changed your mind."

Draco laughed for a moment, then continued, soberly, "I might not have, if Father had been clever enough to leave things as they were. But then he showed me what it really was to be someone's puppet. And I knew you hadn't -- you would never treat me like that." His hand went unconsciously to the silver snake pendant at his throat. "I just knew."

He had to be honest. "It was a spell."

Draco looked down at the serpent in his hand. "You said it was just jewelry."

"It is. But I used it to send you my strength. My emotions. Not to control you, but to support you."

"I dreamed about you." Draco smiled. "You told me to be strong."

"Yes."

"You told me you loved me."

A pause, then: "Yes."

"I think he was jealous that I loved you more than I loved him," said Draco, thoughtfully. "That's why he lied to me. So I wouldn't believe you."

Severus was silent for a moment. As much as he wanted to keep Lucius out of the bedroom, his presence still seemed to hover between them like poisonous fumes from a cauldron. Empty it, clean it, put it away. "Not everything Lucius said was a lie."

"You were lovers."

"After a fashion."

Draco smiled and slipped Severus's robes from his shoulders, plucked at his shirt buttons with deft, pale fingers until the scarred chest was exposed. "I can see how much he loved you," he said, tracing a white line that began at the nipple and trailed toward his side. Under the ironic tones Severus heard forgiveness, and understanding.

"I was foolish to ever believe that he did," he murmured, closing his eyes and enjoying the sensation of his lover's hands on his body.

"So was I." Draco's voice broke, and he pressed his face into the other man's chest. It was no longer the touch of a lover, but that of a child seeking comfort, and Severus pulled him onto his lap and stroked his hair.

"I sent him to Azkaban."

Severus said nothing, but continued to hold him until the hands clutching at his shoulders relaxed and began to make soft circles against his skin. When Draco lifted his face, his slate-colored eyes were dry, and they met his own black eyes with no apology as their lips came together.

What was left of their clothing slid to the floor as Draco pulled him onto the bed, kissing him deeply and almost frantically, his hands constantly moving across Severus's lean body, as if to reassure himself that the other man was real. "Oh, I missed you. I want you," Draco whispered, moving his lips from mouth to collarbone to nipple, rubbing his erection against Severus's thigh. "Oh, fuck, I need you now. Please."

Severus kept his movements deliberately slow and easy, sliding oiled fingers into Draco's body in a measured counterpoint to his lover's insistent writhing. Stilling the searching hands with a caress, he moved to cover Draco's body with his own, unconsciously echoing Draco's moan as he slid fully inside.

Draco set a fast pace, pulling Severus to him with his legs, grasping at his hips to force each thrust as deep as possible, grunting and groaning with fevered intensity, and Severus abandoned himself to the sensation. He came in a matter of minutes, eyes wide and mouth contorted with pleasure, and Draco followed seconds later; as Severus collapsed gently onto the warm, slick body beneath him, he felt Draco's tension slowly ebb away, evaporating into the room with the scents of semen and sweat.

After long moments he felt Draco's lips move against his shoulder. "I can't go back home. Dumbledore said that my mother's disappeared. They think she's gone to the Continent. The Ministry will probably confiscate whatever's left."

"And I imagine a certain Dark Lord will be none too happy."

"That too." Draco shuddered.

"You can stay here, you know."

"Until it turns to war?"

"And through it, come what may." He kissed the pale skin, rolled to the side and gathered Draco in his arms. Yes, it would be war; or rather, the subtle war they'd been fighting for years would break out into the open. But the man he held tightly against his body was a battle won. "You've proven yourself. I believe we are fortunate that you chose to be on our side."

Draco turned so that their eyes met. "And I," he said, "am fortunate that you chose to be on mine."

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http://hieroglyfics.net/hp/salvation.htm | written January-March 2003 by Isis