Author: agnes_bean


Rating: R


Warnings: Character deaths


Notes: Wow. This was my first time attempting (or, more accurately, getting anywhere near completing) anything this long. I couldn’t have done it without three wonderful people: Satoru, who has been my beta from the beginning, and stuck with me even when I went AWOL for weeks on end; Corisu, who jumped in late in the game to help with the little details; and xrachelpaigex, who volunteered to beta and brit pick while we were discussing fan fiction in Physics class, and did a fantastic job. Thank you so much, ladies.

The title is shamelessly ripped from the following quote by Max Frisch: Time does not change us. It just unfolds us.







If you are reading this, you probably already know about me. You probably think this is a ploy to entice you with some heartbreaking sob story about all the bad things I went through, to make you realise that I‘m just ‘misunderstood’.

It’s not.

I know that changing your mind about me is beyond my power, and I don’t know that I would do it if I could. This memoir is written more for my sake than anyone else’s. I’m just trying to write down the facts of the case, so that I can sort out for myself how I came to be here. I’ll probably get things wrong along the way, but I'll do what I can. As long as I can pretend someone will read this, I believe (hope, dare to dream) that it will put my mind to rest. I’m not attempting to excuse anything. I only want to explain that this is not how I meant for things to be.

(1)

First: setting the scene. Not my life’s story, that’s unnecessary. If you care about it, you shouldn’t, it’s neither interesting nor particularly relevant. (Or, the parts that may be relevant aren’t fond memories). But nothing comes from nowhere, and the immediate background for the tale I’m going to tell seems appropriate.

Start by picturing yourself watching humiliation and laughing. The victim: a man (usually so strong, confident, daunting) writhing on the ground in pain, while you pretend to enjoy the spectacle. If you don’t play the game, you will be the next victim, and you’ve already gone through that once.

Now, realize that this picture, the sickening squirm it’s giving you in your stomach, that was my life.

I’m talking about after sixth year. After the attack on Hogwarts (yes, I brought that about. I said I’m not going to try to excuse or hide anything, and I won’t). It’s after Dumbledore’s death at Severus’s hands.

I was supposed to kill Dumbledore. Of course, history tells you that I didn’t. I couldn’t. And I don’t mean that I wasn’t able: he was unarmed, alone and at my mercy. But he was ill and fading, a ghostly shell of the Dumbledore I knew. I couldn’t say the words, I didn’t have the hate.

You might be interested to know that Dumbledore offered to take me out of the Dark Lord’s service. Optimistic fool that he was, even with my wand pointed straight at his heart, he wanted to help me. He believed that the boy who had almost killed two students was still redeemable. And—as sceptical of me as you are, you might not believe this—I was going to accept his offer. I was on the verge of lowering my wand, allowing Dumbledore to take me away to safety. I guess he wasn’t such a fool, after all.

But things didn’t work out, and he ended up dead. Life does that sometimes.

I was shocked when I didn’t end up dead too. I had failed at the task that the Dark Lord had set before me (he was very specific: I was to kill Dumbledore), and he had promised death—my own and my family’s—if I failed. Every Death Eater knows that the Dark Lord delivers on his threats.

However, Dumbledore’s death was such a success—the greatest we had ever had, according to the Dark Lord—that I escaped with only the pain of Crucio. It was a strange world to live in, where enduring Crucio meant I was lucky.

So, I lived, and I was a Death Eater for the months after that attack. I was a good little pet, following my Master’s orders with a smile on my face. I came when called, laughed while others endured unendurable pain. Sometimes it was Muggle-borns or Muggles who writhed on the floor. They were always left to die, our hidden, jeering faces the last thing they’d see. I wondered what the Muggles thought was happening to them. One man screamed about God, another aliens.

Mostly, though, the tortured were people I knew. Someone who had laughed as another suffered the day before. All in black, face masked, it could have been any of us. As memories blur together, the twitching, screaming figure loses its identity. I must have seen nearly every Death Eater suffer for his mistakes. I watched, and I accepted, because there was nothing else that I could do.

I had one thing (even one seems like a blessing now) to be grateful for: after my failure to kill Dumbledore, the Dark Lord seemed to decide that I was more or less useless (one more reason to be surprised he kept me alive). My pride was hurt, at first, when the only assignment he ever gave me was to assist Severus with his potion-making. After all, I had figured out how to get Death Eaters into Hogwarts (it was rather an ingenious plan, I still think. But then, I’m sure you know all about it). But on reflection, I realised that I was not being asked to maim and frighten and kill. Being deemed incompetent is a blessing when competency means you are called upon to murder. The closest I was ever allowed to get to Muggle torture was watching; I never cast Avada Kedavra on the Dark Lord’s orders.

I spent those months wandering the Manor, aimless. My days were spent worrying over how many people I would have to watch scream the next time my arm flared in pain. My only respites were the hours I spent chopping and peeling and dicing ingredients for Severus’s potions. Sheltered away at his house on Spinner’s End, working methodically, I was able to lose myself in the simplicity of the job. Blades of scurvy grass. Cubes of valerian roots. Murtlap tentacles. Each chop blocked that hideous memory of His voice from my ears. Each strain, each squeeze, took me further away from glazed eyes and Muggle blood splattering my robes. Focus on the measuring cup. Only think about the measuring cup.

This was my life.

::

I wanted (understandably, I hope) out. I had tasted freedom at Dumbledore’s words. I had been given a glimpse of its possibility, come close to it. But I knew what betrayal meant. I had spent too much of my sixth year imagining my mother’s cold body. I could see my father, finally released from Azkaban, still registering shock as he crumbled into a motionless mass.

I would not let my family be hurt.

My mother, my beautiful, distraught mother, saw things differently. At home, we would have the same conversation. Repeated so many times, it became a script, but we actors never forgot the passion behind our words.

“Draco,” she would say, hands fretting with her robe. “Darling, he never forgives. He’s just waiting. He’ll find a use for you, and when he’s done, he’ll find another task for you to die at. Get out before then!”

I would grab her hands, hold them still and whisper, “He would know that you helped. He would kill you. I won’t do that. I refuse to let you die.”

“There’s nothing you can do!” she would scream. “We can get you out, we have a plan. Severus has agreed—”

“Even Severus can’t keep you safe, mother!”

“And neither can you!”

“Yes, I can! I will do anything to keep you safe. Anything.” Even live my useless, hateful life forever.

Tears streamed down her face, always, as she replied, word for word: “But you will die. You will die, and what will your protection mean? I would rather know that you are free. I need to know that you are safe.”

“I am safe, as long as I keep appearances up. He had his chances to kill me and he hasn’t.”

But she would only shake her head and hug me. With my faced smashed into her robes, breathing in the smell of childhood comfort, I would hear her whisper into my hair. “No, no, no. You don’t know what he does. You don’t know.”

(2)

So, I was stationary. I had found a rhythm, playing the same part every day. Secretly waiting for the Dark Lord’s plans to crumble apart. Only then could I be free, could my family be safe. And until then, I was determined to do nothing to anger my Master. But sometimes, life forces action upon us.

This is where the story really begins.

It started with another call. Same routine as always: the Mark burns, Apparate to the cellars beneath Borgin & Burkes. Cold stone with the smell of dead rats. Candles swaying in no breeze. Hooded figures lurking in the flickering darkness. They—we—formed a circle, and at our head was a flattened, pale snake-face. This much was normal. Every week, every day, every moment was spent in service of the snake, losing myself behind a mask. That was just what I did, how I survived.

Normal.

What was not normal was the Dark Lord’s glee, the triumphant energy that danced through the air, sending static up my arms. I knew—we all knew—that whatever news the Dark Lord had for us tonight was good. Better than good. I did not want to know. One more step towards success meant one more step towards never ridding myself of the Dark Lord’s reign.

Skin stretched thin in a twisted smile, red eyes gleaming, the Dark Lord silenced our murmurs with a wave.

“It seems that everyone has managed to make it this evening. I am quite glad. The news I have for you will surely make it worth your while.” His eyes rested on Amycus, who had suffered the consequences of absence only days before. Amycus wheezed slightly and agreed: surely, surely. Anything our Lord had to say was worth dropping everything for. “Bellatrix,” the Dark Lord continued, ignoring Amycus’s stuttering. “Fetch our…visitor.”

With a smug nod, Aunt Bellatrix Apparated. For a moment, I reflected that she must be happy, already knowing who had been captured when the rest of us were uninformed. But my aunt’s triumphs in the Dark Lord’s eyes were forgotten as he continued—

“Tonight, I have had the greatest success in months. The greatest success since that senile, meddling pest was killed.” The energy in the room jumped. Dumbledore’s death had been considered a nearly unequivocal victory. “Soon, soon, this will be the greatest success of all. The greatest.”

With those words, we all knew what had happened. There was only one person the Dark Lord valued so much. But I was still startled when Aunt Bellatrix reappeared, wand pressed into her prisoner’s mess of black hair. I had wished his defeat many times over our years of rivalry. He came to the brink of killing me, in sixth year (Did you know that? Are you surprised?), and in the days I spent recovering, I had imagined him at my mercy. Imagined his body limp as I kicked him, cursed him, made him bleed.

But I was unprepared to really see the hero of the Wizarding World only a few feet away, bound and gagged. Helpless. Aunt Bellatrix gave him a disdainful shove and Harry Potter crumpled to the ground at the Dark Lord’s feet.

There were rips in his Muggle jeans; his white shirt was spotted red. His scar, enflamed to the point of glowing, stood out against pale skin, and his hair was matted with blood. He glared at the Dark Lord, angry and hateful, but utterly obstinate. He pushed himself onto his knees, steady and confident, not the heap of broken despair that I had come to expect from captives. Harry Potter, looking death in the eye, was defiant.

I felt the first flash of admiration.

The people around me gasped and whispered with appropriate delight. I remained silent. Harry was kneeling bravely, but I was standing shaking. Distraught and afraid. Cowardly (how’s that for honesty?). I saw in Harry’s lean figure the same thing as everyone else: the final key to the Dark Lord’s success. His bloodied features spelled out the downfall of the Wizarding World. And that meant that I would never, could never get the freedom I longed for.

“How…how did you…?” This was Wormtail, expressing the feelings of everyone present. The Dark Lord laughed. It was a cold, chilling laugh that I had come to loathe.

“Harry wasn’t being as careful as he should have been,” he said. “Am I right, Harry?”

Harry merely continued to stare.

“The Dark Lord asked you a question!” Aunt Bellatrix sneered. Harry cast her a contemptuous look. Aunt Bellatrix was always ready for games, and ‘Imperius the Imprisoned’ was one she excelled at. She whipped out her want and snapped the curse quickly. “Answer him!” For a moment, Harry looked slack-jawed, his eyes glazed. He began, slowly, to incline his head. But then his eyes snapped back into focus and he sneered back at her.

I had my second flash of admiration.

Aunt Bellatrix looked ready to murder him then and there, but the Dark Lord stopped whatever she had in mind by booming “Enough!” Aunt Bellatrix paused, and then stepped back, abashed. I fleetingly thought that whatever she had done to earn early knowledge of Harry’s capture had just been wasted. Sometimes she liked games too much for her own good.

“Harry will answer on his own terms,” the Dark Lord continued, and flashed his wand. “Now that you can speak, Harry, tell these nice people how sloppy you were being tonight.”

Harry laughed, Harry laughed, an odd broken sort of laugh, but still said nothing. The Dark Lord considered him.

“He was caught at Godric’s Hollow, crying over his parents’ graves,” he finally said. “Completely alone. Sentimental idiocy,” he added with a sneer. “Ironic, isn’t it, Harry? That love should get you captured so easily?”

I didn’t understand the point being made, but something like pain flickered across Harry’s face.

“I thought love was supposed to save you,” the Dark Lord continued. “Isn’t that what your beloved Dumbledore always said?”

At Dumbledore’s name, Harry’s resolve cracked a little. He trembled, with rage rather than fear, but it was enough to make him respond.

“You don’t know anything about love,” he said in a quiet, resolved voice.

“Perhaps not. But I do appear to know much more than you about success.” This was said with a smile at the Death Eaters, and they laughed appreciatively, as expected. I, however, kept my stoic silence. I couldn’t laugh as my hopes evaporated before my eyes. I couldn’t, not even to keep up appearances. That moment was too much. Harry seemed so sure, but I knew, knew that he was going to die. How could he possibly escape?

“You call this success?” Harry retorted. “Having no friends, only servants? Destroying everything?” He was bold. Daring. Crazy. I began to wonder if his apparent confidence was really his way of showing that he knew he was going to die. Maybe he just didn’t want to go out begging.

“Yes, Harry. I do call that success,” the Dark Lord said calmly. Proudly. “After all, I have the upper hand, and am soon to strike a very important blow. You must know that with your death, complete victory will be mine. You have failed, and your precious friendships did nothing to stop that.”

Harry shook his head. “You will only have complete victory when every single person who has ever stood against you is go—”

“Enough!” Aunt Bellatrix growled, her earlier reprimanding momentarily forgotten. The Dark Lord glared at her, and she added, “Is it not time to strike the final blow, My Lord? We all long—not as much as you, My Lord, of course, but very much—to see this nuisance gone.”

“Yes,” Harry agreed. “Aren’t you going to kill me? Or are you afraid you’re going to fail like all the other times you’ve tried?”

Aunt Bellatrix hissed, but was composed enough to keep silent. For once.

The Dark Lord remained quite for a few moments, simply observing Harry. Then he let out a low smattering of hisses. Parseltongue. Someone whispered “What?” He was shushed. Harry understood, of course, and frowned. He shook his head and let out a sharp hiss in response. The Dark Lord smiled.

Turning towards Aunt Bellatrix, he told her (and all of us) that no, now was not the time to kill Harry. In fact, Harry was to be sent to Spinner’s End. I glanced at Severus; he didn’t react to the news. I assumed it wasn’t news to him.

“But…why?” Aunt Bellatrix ventured.

“There is something I have to…get out of him,” the Dark Lord replied.

“What information could be worth postponing his death? What will we need to know, after he is gone!?”

“You over step your boundaries, Bellatrix,” Severus cut in, speaking softly. Placating. I was surprised; he never spoke out of turn. But the Dark Lord seemed undisturbed, and merely inclined his head.

“Yes,” he agreed. “The business I have with the Potter boy does not involve you.”

My aunt huffed, crossed her arms over her chest, and glared icily at Severus.

“Certainly, My Lord. I am sorry.”

Harry watched this exchange with a deepening frown. His jaw clenched when Severus spoke, his eyes narrowing into angry green slits. His face drained of whatever colour it had, so that little flecks of blood stood out like dirt on snow. Like contamination.

The rest of the Death Eaters knew enough to keep their silence, though they must have felt Aunt Bellatrix’s discontent. Here was the prize of all prizes, dangling in front of their faces, and the hand holding it was keeping it just out of reach. But the Dark Lord knew best, and protest would only show their ignorance. And, most likely, get them a nice bout of the Cruciatus. There’s no stronger motivator for silence than that.

“Harry,” the Dark Lord continued, “will be guarded at all times. Rabastan and Alecto will go with Severus now. The rest will be contacted when needed.”

With that, the Dark Lord whirled and disappeared in a flare of black robes.

::

My mother’s script was revised that night. As she paced across my bedroom floor, her pleas became demands; her normally tear-streaked cheeks were dry and flushed. She knew what Harry Potter’s capture meant for us. For me. For freedom. She knew what she wanted me to do, and she brought reinforcement.

Mother shoved a mirror into my hands.

“I know you won’t even begin to listen, if I tell you,” she said. Resentful. Affectionate. Very correct. “But we’ve talked it over, and maybe you’ll listen to him.”

I looked down. From within the gilded frame (gold, vines, Malfoy crest) Severus Snape looked up at me, his eyebrows drawn together.

“I don’t have much time,” he said. “So listen to your mother when I’m done, Draco. Tomorrow night, I’m freeing Potter, and you are coming with me.”

My lips parted, words caught in my throat.

“You’re doing what?” I managed. Severus gave me the exasperated look usually reserved for Neville Longbottom.

“Rescuing Potter and leaving. You are coming with us. Don’t act so surprised, Draco! After the number of times I’ve offered to get you out, did you really think that I was loyal to the Dark Lord?”

This gave me pause. The answer was no. Obviously, no. Severus was loyal to himself. To my family. To me. Not to the Dark Lord, not on principle. But he wasn’t loyal to Harry fucking Potter either, and there was no reason for him to risk everything over The Boy Who Lived. I told him as much.

“Draco, I don’t have the time to argue over ideology,” he snapped. “Suffice to say, I’m doing it for a reason that satisfies me. And you are coming because it is the only opportunity you have to do so that will not incriminate your mother.”

“I don’t see how,” I retorted. I didn’t. Abandonment was abandonment, and running off with the Dark Lord’s most important prisoner hardly seemed to make the situation better for those I left behind.

“Your mother will explain. I need to go before I’m missed. Listen to her, Draco. Do what she asks you.” With that, his imaged vanished, leaving my own reflection staring back at me, wide eyed and frowning.

::

“Well, will you listen to me now, without your arguing?” Mother asked.

Putting down the mirror, I took a heavy breath, and nodded.

“Good,” she said, and smiled. Relieved. Hopeful.

“Would you like to explain to me what’s going on?”

“Yes, my Draco. I would. Severus and I have been talking—”

“Clearly.”

“—since the Dark Lord told him about Harry Potter.”

“You knew?”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

“We wanted to make our plan first.”

“Your plan. About me. That you didn’t even consult me about.” I sounded petulant even to my own ears. (I believed I had some right to be annoyed. I still do, though now I can see their wisdom. I don’t think I would have ever agreed if they hadn’t sprung their arrangement on me, fully formed.)

“Yes, my darling. Our plan about you, with which we needed none of your consultation. We are consulting you now.”

“I don’t see that you’re giving me many options.”

“Wait until I tell you about it before you protest!” She was getting frustrated. I couldn’t blame her; I was being obstinate and knew it. I didn’t like being told that I was going to be risking everything to save someone whom I had never liked. Can you blame me? If Harry died, my situation could only get worse, true. But this was Harry Potter. The-Boy-Who-Lived-Over-And-Over-Again. Fate was always on his side, without me having to get mixed up in any of it.

“Fine, tell me. What ingenious plan keeps the Dark Lord from killing you once I run off with Potter?”

“Well, it’s simple, really.”

“Of course.”

“The Dark Lord trusts Severus completely.”

“He did kill Dumbledore,” I agreed.

“Exactly. And that puts you in the perfect position. Harry Potter is protected by more than guards, of course. But all of the protective spells are Severus’s.”

I nodded, and filled in the blank. “All we have to do is get rid of the guards, then.”

“Yes. The house is being monitored, of course, so you won’t have much time before someone realises what you’ve done. But it should be enough, once the guards are out.”

“Hopefully. And how exactly are we supposed to overcome two guards, and not implicate you? If you help us fight—”

“Who said anything about fighting? Really Draco, you know better. That would raise the alarm too quickly.”

“Then, what?” She was rarely condescending, but she was then, and it annoyed me. I didn’t have the intellect of a five-year-old just because I couldn’t see through her veil of hints and comprehend her glorious master plan.

“Potions, Draco. Potions. We will arrive, on the pretext that you want to check up on Severus, see if he needs any help. Crabbe and Goyle are on duty tomorrow; they know how you dote on him.”

“I wouldn’t call it doting, Mother.” It wasn’t. I never dote. He was just the only adult outside my immediate family for whom I had even a modicum of fondness.

“Sure, darling. Of course. They know how much you like him, then.”

“Better.”

“Do you want me to finish, or not?”

“Of course, Mother. Continue. We go to Spinner’s End because I’m so very worried about my dear professor.”

“And Severus will declare drinks all around. Crabbe, Goyle and I will drink, you and Severus will not.”

“Poison?”

“I would hope not. Really, Draco, didn’t I just say that I was drinking it too?”

“Oh. Right.”

“Sleeping potion. You see, I drink it too, and you and Severus run off with Potter, and I say I knew nothing about it.”

I dropped onto the trunk at the foot of my bed. Carved oak with gold inlays. The Malfoy crest. Like the mirror. Like everything in our house. I traced the carving of a giant-hunting party with my finger, making scratches in the gold with my nail. I followed the line of a spell to the giant that it was hitting. I tapped the dying figure and whispered “Pow.” You’re dead.

“And you are just going to lie to the Dark Lord?” I asked.

“My Occlumency has held up in the past.”

I really had to admit, it was a decent plan. It made sense. I took in a gulp of air, held it until my chest started to burn. Held it even longer, and then let it out with a gasp. I wanted out, and here it was handed to me. Why was I resisting? I tried not to think that I was fucking terrified.

“Okay,” I said. “Fine. I’ll do it.”

Mother gave me the warmest smile I had seen in months.

(3)

The next day, I woke and stared at the ceiling. There was a crack above me, a small thread running across my vision. I had never noticed it before. I pulled my comforter (Slytherin green, like every blanket since I was born) close to me. This was it. No more Manor, maybe ever. I sighed.

Goodbye home.

I spent my morning pacing the halls, memorizing the tapestries. The Goblin rebellion in three parts. Giant wars. Witch trials. Patterns I’d seen since birth, but never really seen. I wandered into the library. So many books I had never read, never even touched. Dusty tomes, velvet and leather extending to the ceiling. History, spells, potions, mythology, dark arts. Scrolls from forever ago. Up high, protected by a preservation spell, we had some forgotten celebrity’s hand written letters. There had been a collector, at one point. The Black family intellectual. There were too many books to ever be read, browsed, even observed by one person. But I felt failure in not having absorbed everything offered.

Goodbye home.

The sun beat down as I walked through the gardens. I strolled along the tastefully curved paths, trying not to think that perhaps the rows and rows of flowers and the trees, with ivy creeping up and through the branches, were a little too extravagant. Nothing was allowed to be less than perfect that day. Not in my home.

There was a swing out back, attached to a lumbering elm. Just like every perfect childhood should have. My swing, rope and wood and an indestructible cushioned seat. Perfect for screams of delight when I was a child. Mother and Father would take turns pushing me while I shouted for them to make me go higher, higher. I wanted to fly. My swing, perfect for completing summer homework outside, when the worst thing I had to worry about was detention from McGonagall.

I sat down, dug my heels into the grass, and pushed. Wind brushed through my hair, sweeping it back from my closed eyes. Higher, higher, I told myself. My swing, perfect for the last time.

::

I adjusted my robe, considering myself in a full-length mirror. The blonde hair and cool grey eyes with lines of red from a sleepless night. With my skin sallow and taut, I tried to set my expression. Firm, not scared. Casual. Nothing is wrong. I curved my lips up. Just your usual smirk, I told myself. You just want to check on Severus. Nothing is odd.

I decided my cheeks were too pallid. I looked drained, scared. (I was drained, scared). I slapped myself and winced, reminded of Hermione Granger (she had slapped me, once). However, a spot of red appeared, and I congratulated myself. I appeared more or less like I wasn’t about to do either the most foolhardy or most inspired thing I had ever done.

I looked around one last time. This was it. I was struck by how very green my room was. The bed covers, the curtains. Even the walls were pale green. With silver trim. How nice. I tried to remember if it was a result of my own Slytherin pride or my parents’.

“All right,” I told my reflection. “This is it. Freedom. You can do it.”

“Yes, you can.” I turned to find my mother, smiling at me with the same warm smile from the night before. “Are you ready?” she asked. I noticed that my hands were in fists, and unclenched them.

“Yes. I’m ready.”

“Good,” she said. Then, so quickly that it surprised me, she pulled me into a hug. “I love you,” she whispered into my hair. “I love you so much, my darling.”

“I love you too,” I said, and she pulled me closer, smashing my face into her shoulder.

“I’m proud of you,” she told the top of my head. “You’re such a good boy. So good.” She sighed and released me. I smiled at her, wiped a tear off her cheek. “Your father would be proud of you too,” she said quietly. She left ‘for what you achieved at Hogwarts; not for running,’ unsaid. But I knew.

“Well, are we going?” I asked.

She laughed, choking back tears, and nodded.

“Eager, now, are you? Yes, we can go. But have this.” She pressed a small object into my hand. A mirror, no bigger than my palm. Brass, but still gilded. It had the Malfoy crest. “Keep in contact with me. Promise?”

She held out her hand, brisk and formal. It was a joke of ours. When I was little I had seen Father shaking hands with a ministry official, and for months I wanted to close every deal just like that. I would hold my chubby hand up and stick out my chin, feeling important. Mother and I continued long after I stopped with everyone else. I grabbed her hand, then, and was struck how much smaller, how much more delicate it seemed to me than in the past.

“Promise,” I said.

::

We Apparated near Spinner’s End, and walked towards Severus’s house in silence. Brick buildings loomed, as if they were going to break apart and crush me into the street. Weeds sprung up through cracks in the sidewalk, illuminated by streams of light from streetlamps. A rat darted across my path, and for a moment I wondered if it was Wormtail. Then it ran through a patch of light and I realised it was black. I let out a breath and shook my head. Almost there, I told myself. You’re not scared shitless, I told myself. You aren’t.

Snape’s house was a familiar to me. Its dilapidated setting shocked me the first time I saw it, but I adjusted. Even, sometimes, when the sun would hit a broken window and gleam, I thought I saw something beautiful in the depressed Muggle neighbourhood. That night, though, there was nothing attractive in the shadows. It was dark, and too cold for the summer. Or maybe that’s just how I felt.

We stood at the door, Mother apparently waiting for me to say something. I closed my eyes for a few seconds, tried to remember how to make my expression look natural. Nothing unusual, I reminded myself, and pinched my cheeks to bring the colour back again. Then I caught Mother’s eye and nodded. She rapped on the door.

The first step towards freedom.

Goyle opened the door and frowned at us.

“What?” he asked.

“Oh, Draco wanted to check up on Severus. See if he needs any help,” Mother said with a coy smile. “He gets so worried about Severus, you know. All cooped up in here.”

Goyle took a moment to consider this, and, apparently coming to the conclusion that Mother’s story was likely enough, beckoned us in.

The house was the same as always. Everything seemed to be falling apart around the edges. The couch had threads sticking out of it, and the bookshelves that lined the walls were scratched and chipped. The only lighting was a single lamp on the ceiling, casting everything in shadow. I had once asked Severus why he kept his home in such disrepair—he wasn’t that poor, and he was perfectly capable of fixing the wobbly table and moulding armchair with magic. I got no response. I think he liked the atmosphere. It certainly was oppressive.

Goyle joined Crabbe at the table, slumping himself into a small wooden chair that gave an ominous crack. The pair looked despondent, slouching forward towards a candle someone had lit in the middle of the table. Like bugs to a lamp, easy to smash.

Mother sat on the couch, asked where Severus was. Goyle waved at the bookshelves lining the left wall—a secret door to the basement. The house was filled with secret doors (I now wonder now how many secrets I didn’t know).

“I’m going to check on him,” I declared. Crabbe nodded in consent, eyes never leaving the candle in front of him. Some guard, I thought. We could rescue Potter without having to give them a sleeping potion at all. I considered suggesting it. Oh, we’re just taking him for a little fresh air. He gets so moody, all cramped up. We’ll be back in an hour.

The steps to the cellar were everything they should have been: dark, dusty, and foreboding. They creaked and groaned as I hastened down to the dimly lit basement.

“It’s Draco,” I called, loud enough to carry back up the stairs.

“Draco!” Severus replied, equally loud. “What a nice surprise.”

The basement was reminiscent of the Hogwarts dungeons, jars filling the walls, glittering in candlelight. It was stuffy and smelled of mould and dust and the fumes of years of potions. The fire beneath Severus’s caldron made me sweat immediately.

My place of comfort. The room in which I had lost my troubles to the chop, chop, drain, peal, chop.

Severus was stirring a bubbling black potion absentmindedly, watching me with a frown as made my way over to him.

“I assume you are ready?” he asked as I reached his side.

“Yes,” I said, with barely any hitch.

His frown relaxed, and he put out the fire. “Good,” he said. “I’m glad”

“I wouldn’t have come if I wasn’t going to do it,” I told him.

“Of course. I’m glad you’re here, then.” He turned to his shelves, paused, and then grabbed a small vile. As if he hadn’t know exactly where it was. No need to put on a show for me, I thought. You’ve got everything ready as perfect as you can. I know it. I almost told him so, but didn’t. “Let’s go, then,” he said, and swept towards the stairs without a backwards glance. As if he weren’t leaving his home for the last time. As if he wasn’t risking his life for a boy he hated.

As if I wasn’t risking my life for a boy I hated. For freedom too, I told myself. But as we made our ways back up the stairs and nausea began to weigh in the pit of my stomach, all I could feel was I was gambling everything for Harry Potter. Harry Potter. Our plan was good, I reminded myself. I want out. I want out. But nothing’s foolproof. And between Mother’s smiles and Severus’s indifference, I began to wonder if I was the only sane one left. The only one with screaming voices and Mother’s corpse playing in the back of my mind.

Nothing’s up, I thought as we reached the top. Look normal. Nothing’s up. We’re not insane. We’re not traitors. Mother’s not going to die. I’m not going to be killed. I’m not even thinking about doing anything that would get me killed. Nothing’s up.

Severus had moved to the other side of the room before I was composed enough to follow him out of the shadowed doorway. He said something about drinks as he slipped past the table, and Crabbe and Goyle looked up, showing interest for the first time all night. I slid into a seat as Snape disappeared into another secret room, reappearing with a bottle of mead and five glasses (the only thing the house that weren’t broken or dirty). Joining us at the table he quickly served, and the glasses were grabbed up by Crabbe and Goyle.

“To the Dark Lord,” Severus muttered, raising his glass and giving me a pointed stare. Crabbe and Goyle’s glasses hit with a light tinkle and cries of “hear, hear,” and they downed their drinks.

“The Dark Lord,” Mother said with a smile, tapping her glass against mine. I caught her eye, and she winked before also sipping her drink.

A step towards freedom, not a step away from home. I’m not scared shitless, I told myself.

It seemed too easy; they just toppled over. I thought it looked like they weren’t breathing.

“Are you sure that wasn’t poison?” I whispered. Severus shot me an angry look. Right, I thought. Don’t talk. Just follow the lead. For once, not being in charge was fine with me.

Severus was up and waving his wand at a bookshelf. Another secret door. I wondered how big this house really was, with doors ever which where. I sat in silence, watching Severus’s brow crumple, his frown deepen. I worried that he had set up protective spells too hard for even he to get through. Maybe the Dark Lord planned on starving Harry to death.

But then the bookshelves swung open, revealing a dark hole of a room. The feeble light from the living room barely penetrated it, for a few seconds I saw no signs of Harry. Then Snape lit the end of his wand, casting a stream of light across a huddled figure.

Harry looked up and squinted at the brightness. His hair was still matted down, and one of his eyes was bruised, and his glasses half off of his face. His lips were cracked, the area around his eyes puffy and red (had the hero of the Wizarding World been crying? Was it from self-pity or pain?). But his eyes stood out, green and still filled with that same fury he had had confronting the Dark Lord. He barely spared me a glanced, focused on Severus.

“What do you want?” His voiced was strained, dry, thin. But as strong and spiteful as possible.

“I wouldn’t take that tone with your rescuers, Potter,” Severus hissed. “It’s not very polite.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Rescuers. Right. Tell Voldemort,” (I shuddered. I still shudder, so forgive me, that I still cannot bring myself to right his name.) “that I’m not that stupid. I’m not playing his games.”

I gapped at Harry. Here we were trying to save him (at our own risk. Our own risk!) and he was rolling his eyes! There’s an example of biting the hand that feeds you. I wanted to tell Severus to run, run, run, and leave the ungrateful bastard. Mother had said the house was monitored. We didn’t have much time. And he was rolling his eyes. The idiot, I thought. He’s a fucking idiot and I’m going to die because of it.

Severus was glaring at Harry. He looked unsurprised; apparently Harry’s obstinacy was an anticipated roadblock that no one had bothered telling me about.

I had my first flash of anger.

“Potter,” Severus growled. “Don’t be a fool.”

“That’s exactly what I’m doing. I’m not playing foolish games. Does Voldemort actually expect me to believe that you—”

Severus shook his head, waved his wand, and muttered “Petrificus Totalus.’ Harry immediately stiffened. He rolled his eyes again (again) and continued to glare, challenging. Swiftly grabbing Harry’s immobile body and nodding towards the door, Severus said, “We’ll deal with him later. We need to Apparate out of here. Run!”

I didn’t need telling twice. I bolted towards the door and into the street. Severus’s house was well protected: it was several blocks until we could Apparate. I sprinted left, the opposite of the way I had come in. Only a matter of time, I thought, until Death Eaters start pouring in. A matter of time until they realised we are making off with Harry Potter who rolled his fucking eyes at us.

Another flash of anger. He definitely wasn’t worth this.

I heard Severus pounding down the street after me, lugging Harry with him. An awkward, ungrateful weight. We should leave him, I thought. We’re going to die because of him. Untrusting, argent, stupid saviour of everything, he can’t even let himself be rescued properly.

“Another block,” Severus said, catching up to me, casting me a worried glance. I nodded, tried not let him hear how heavily I was breathing. Almost there, almost there, almost there. Almost free. Even with the extra weight.

And then a dark figure came hurling at us from the direction we were running towards. A stream of red light flew past us. Severus grabbed my arm immediately, and pulled me towards a side alley. His jerk was so hard I tripped, hands touching the ground before I hurtled myself forward after him. There were shouts behind us, other Death Eaters catching up.

“That lamppost,” Severus said, between gasps. “After that you can Apparate.” I looked forward, saw a dot of light. Our alley, a street, another alley, lamppost.

“Damn,” I gasped. Severus shoved Harry’s stiff form towards me. The shouts were getting louder, the thuds of their feet faster than our own. I looked at him in shock. “Severus…”

Another stream of light blasted past our heads.

“Take him and run!” Severus shouted, shoving Harry into my arms. He was lighter than I expected. Frail in his stiffness. But still an uncomfortable burden.

“I don’t know how to Side-Along—”

“Figure it out,” Snape hissed, still running beside me as another curse sent a trashcan flying. There was a metallic crash and a cat hissed.

“Where?”

Severus considered a second, looked blank. He didn’t know. My stomach heaved.

“The Shrieking Shack,” he whispered, finally. I started.

“What!?”

“Just go,” he said. “I’ll catch up, or I won’t. Wait as long as you think—”

“You aren’t staying here!” I protested, but he merely shoved me and turned, sending jets of light at the rapidly approaching Death Eaters.

What was I supposed to do? I ran. As quickly as I could with Harry’s figure clutched tightly between my arms, against my chest. The distance was not long, but it felt like forever, with the sound of battle behind me. Shouts and crashes and curses and a scream (not Severus, I told myself).

You, my reader, may condemn me for it. I was, after all, leaving one of the few people I cared about to face a slew of angry Death Eaters. But remember, if I had stayed, Harry Potter may have died, and then where would you be? Of course, you say I was really running to save my own skin. And I don’t know if I can argue against that. But the thing is, I saved Harry Potter, and he’s who’s important. Right?

I stopped, panting, by the lamppost. Looking back, I saw a shower of sparks flying, Severus’s lone figure against four or five black shapes. He was holding them back, spell after spell sending one and then another scurrying. But still, they were pressing forward. And Severus had told me to get out.

I licked my lips. Apparition. I had done it enough times, but not with someone else. And not to a haunted shack I had never been inside. It seemed like an odd choice of rendezvous spots, but I wasn’t about to go someplace else with the Dark Lord on my tail and Harry Potter in my arms.

Destination, Determination, Deliberation. Destination, Determination, Deliberation.

Focusing on that broken down shack, trying to imagine its destroyed insides, I clutched Harry harder, hands digging into his back, closed my eyes, and willed myself there.

When I opened my eyes again, I was standing in a barren room, and Harry was still in my arms, intact. I let out a deep breath. At least we were alive. The only light was faint moonlight coming from between the boards across a single window, and it reviled a room empty except for a couch with torn pillows and an upended, broken chair. Both were covered with a thick layer of dust. Untouched for years, I thought. Except by ghosts. If the shack is really haunted. It’s not, I told myself.

I put Harry’s still frozen body down on the couch, so that he lay sideways, and moved to the window, my steps muffled by the dust collected on the floor. Looking between the boards, I saw a familiar fence, the Forbidden Forest stretching out behind it.

“I guess this is the Shrieking Shack,” I said, turning back to Harry. He watched me, unable to respond. “So, what am I supposed to do with you?” I asked conversationally. “I could leave you frozen until Severus gets here,” I continued. “Until he gets here,” I repeated, refusing to allow myself think if. When, when, when. Any minute. “I’m going to leave you there until he gets here, which will be soon,” I told Harry.

I tried righting the chair, but one of its legs had broken off completely. It looked like it had been attacked, falling apart and scratched up.

“Some ghosts,” I said, trying to smile. Some ghosts that better leave us alone. I couldn’t see what I was doing there. Were there no other secluded spots anywhere? I looked over at Harry, and he rolled his eyes at me.

Fucking Harry Potter.

Seat-less, I leaned against the wall by the window, across from Harry, and counted the floorboards to keep from having to look at him. One. Two. Is that a scratch mark? Three. Four. Interesting pattern, how old was that tree? Five. Six. Seven, eight, nine. Teneleventwelve. Thirteen, for bad luck. I’ve had some of that today…fifty, fifty-one. It must have been ten minutes, where’s Severus? Seventy-three. Seventy-four. Seventy-five, seventy-six, seventy-seven. Mother must be fine. Mother must be fine (I fingered the mirror, still in my robe pocket). Twenty-one. Twenty-two.

Where the hell was Severus?

(4)

I don’t know how long I stood counting floorboards, wall boards, ceiling boards. On hour, maybe. Trying to fend off a sinking in my stomach, the nausea rising back up. This wasn’t the plan. This wasn’t the plan. The plan was supposed to work. The plan was not me and a Body-Bound Harry Potter alone in the Shrieking Shack, Severus Merlin knew where.

This was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Fuck

I looked at Harry. He had closed his eyes, though I didn’t know if he was sleeping or just bored of looking at the same bare room. The last time I had seen Harry Potter petrified, it had ended with me stepping on his face. Revenge for putting Father in jail. But now…I didn’t know. Was he under my protection? Was I still in the process of rescuing him?

He was not worth this.

Severus had said wait as long as you think—and what? I had the Boy Who Lived frozen on a couch in the most haunted building in all of Britain, and no idea what I was doing. Severus hadn’t said—I tried not to think about Severus. He was supposed to be here. And he wasn’t. I told myself he was fine. Fine, fine, fine. Focus on here, now. On a dusty room and a broken chair. A torn up couch. An impossible situation. Focus on Harry fucking Potter. Not on Severus, captured, tortured, dead.

“What am I supposed to do?” I asked. Harry opened his eyes. “Maybe I should let you talk.” He blinked slowly at me. I took it as please. “I suppose you don’t have a wand,” I continued, eyeing his Muggle clothing. Nothing in any of the pockets. “The Dark Lord wouldn’t have left you one of those. Fine, then.”

I paused for another second, and then cast the counter-curse, keeping my wand pointed at him. He hesitated, as if suspecting a trick. Like I would hurt him after going through so much trouble to help him. Then he stretched his arms over his head, arched his back. Standing, he rolled his neck and then raised his eyes level with mine.

“What the hell is going on?” he demanded. I frowned at him, slightly taken aback.

“That’s no tone to take with someone who just saved your life, Potter.” I said with a sneer. In case he was forgetting who I was (or in case I was forgetting who I was. Panicked, maybe, but I was still supposed to be in control.)

“And I’m supposed to believe that? That you just saved my life?” He folded his arms across his chest and sat back down, the couch sagging under his weight. As if I was about to give him a long explanation. As if he deserved answers from me.

No. He definitely wasn’t worth any of this.

“Yes, Potter. You are. Do you think the Dark Lord routinely has Death Eaters pretend to rescue his captives?”

“I wouldn’t know what Voldemort routinely has his Death Eaters do.”

I took a deep breath, and resisted the urge to put him back into a Full Body-Bind. I wanted him to stop staring at me, demanding…what? Answers? As if I had answers. As if I knew why we were alone in that god forsaken building. As if I had some master plan. As if the plan wasn’t lost to Death Eater curses on a Muggle street.

“Potter, listen to me. If you didn’t notice, Severus and I went to a lot of trouble for you—h ”

“Yes, I really appreciated the Full Body Bind, by the way. I always like to make the people I’m rescuing—”

“Shut it, Potter! If you’d just come with us, it wouldn’t have been necessary, would it now?” And Severus would be here, I thought. And he could be having this conversation with you. Maybe he’d know why we went to so much trouble for you, because I don’t. I took another deep breath.

Harry observed me thoughtfully for a few seconds, biting his lower lip and frowning as he ran his eyes across my face. It was disconcerting; I shifted uncomfortably. “So why, exactly,” he finally said, his hostility abated, “did you and…Snape help me?” He spat ‘Snape’ like it was dirty; I saw a flash of anger in his eyes, but he controlled it.

“Why do you think, Potter?” I said, throwing as much scorn as I could manage into the words. He didn’t have to know I was wondering the same thing.

“I’m asking you. I know you don’t have any particular love for me—”

“That’s certainly true.”

“And neither does Snape,” he added, his frown turning into a scowl. “So what are you two planning on doing to me, if this isn’t some sort of mind game?”

“Will you shut up with that mind game business already?”

“Not until you give me a better explanation.” Another demand. And this time he caught my eyes, bore into me with sharp green, challenging. I was standing, had the wand pointed at his heart, and yet, inexplicably, he was in control of the situation.

I had a flash of admiration. And then, just as quickly, a surge of anger.

“Fuck you, Potter.”

I stalked back over to the window, looked out. The Forbidden Forest loomed at me beneath the stars, its trees extending farther than I could see. I stared at the edge, hoping to see Severus come stamping out, robe billowing behind him, and half expecting to see a horde of Death Eaters instead, masked faces charging towards the shack, ready to re-claim Potter and torture me and torture me and torture me until I died. I saw neither. Sighing, I turned around, letting my wand drop to my side. After all, there were worse things in the world than Harry Potter, no matter how much he infuriated me. Whatever else, this was freedom, right?

His eyes still bore into me, his expression still firm. The dried blood around his temples, the bruises around his eyes and cuts across his face made him more intimidating, if anything. He was a war hero and here I was the coward who only rescued him as an excuse to run away.

“I got you out of there, Potter; I don’t owe you an explanation,” I said, walking towards him, so that only half the room separated us. The closer you are, the more intimidating, I thought to myself.

“Mind games.”

“Damn you,” I huffed.

“Are you going to explain the situation?”

“Fine, Potter. Since your little mind is too small to comprehend—”

“Do you always insult the people you save?”

“Just because I helped you doesn’t mean I don’t still hate you.”

“See, that’s where I have a problem. Normally people don’t go risking their necks for people they hate.”

“Well, Potter, when the choice is between you and the Dark Lord, I hate you less,” I spat.

Harry’s firm resolve broke for a second. I saw a flicker of—something. Understanding, I thought, though I wasn’t sure that that made sense. But then the blazing eyes, the challenging stare was back, and he replied, “Well, now we’re getting somewhere.”

“Don’t patronize me, Potter,” I snapped. Not fucking worth it, I thought. He’s not, he’s not, he’s not. “We rescued you, because contrary to what you may think, Severus and I don’y want to see the Dark Lord triumph.” That was true, after all, and probably it was Severus’s motive. If only I knew his motive for sending us to this dusty, decrepit house, I thought.

Harry’s eyebrows snapped together at Severus’s name, and he bit his lip again. “I have a hard time believing that,” he said coldly.

“Well, then, believe what you want! I don’t care! You wanted an explanation, I gave you one. If you insist on thinking I’m some evil—”

“I don’t know about you,” Harry said, that flash of understanding playing across his features again. “But I don’t believe Snape wishes me well,” he finished with a scowl. The tone was so cold, I wondered for a second if he knew about who killed Dumbledore. But he couldn’t know, I considered. He wasn’t there. No one but Death Eaters was there.

“Well, Severus isn’t here now, is he?” I said, trying to keep my voice level. I was in control. My stomach didn’t clench when I though about pale limbs flailing, the usual smirk contorted in pain. Severus would be alright. Fine, fine, fine, I reminded myself. He’ll be fine.

“No,” Harry admitted, “he’s not.”

“And if you didn’t notice, he was fighting off a swarm of Death Eaters to save your skin.”

“Your skin too,” Harry pointed out begrudgingly, but his scowl eased into a puzzled frown. “It doesn’t make sense,” he whispered. I barely heard him, and didn’t respond. I watched as he started into his lap, one hand rubbing against his scar. I don’t know how long it took, a few minutes I think, before he finally he said, “Fine. So maybe this little operation was for my own good.”

“Glad you finally realised it, Potter. Though I would have thought watching us almost get cursed into oblivion would have been good enough.”

“Fine. Fine. Thank you very much for rescuing me,” he muttered. I sensed some bitterness in the words. I acknowledged his thanks with a small bow of my head. I had never imagined Harry Potter thanking me for anything. A small thrill of triumph swept through my stomach. “Could you tell me what you plan on doing with me now?” Harry continued.

I looked at the floor. “Ah, well. That.”

“You don’t know, do you?” Harry realised, smirking.

“I didn’t say that!”

“Some rescue.”

“You’re free, aren’t you?” He was free, I was free. No reason I had to know what to do with that freedom any more than he did. Wasn’t he the one who was supposed to be saving everyone? Shouldn’t he be on top of getting out of sticky situations?

“Yeah, I guess I am,” Harry acknowledged. “So is that it? This is the end of your plan?”

I kicked at the chair’s broken leg, watched it roll over to Harry. As it came to rest near his feet I muttered, “Yes.”

“Well, then,” he said, knocking the chair leg back towards me and standing, “I have places I can go to, so I’ll be leaving now.”

My head jerked up, and, catching the expression of what I can only imagine was pure terror on my face, he froze. I hadn’t meant to lose my calm facade, of course. I was supposed to be in control. In control. But he couldn’t just leave. As much as I hated to admit it, (and I did. Hated, hated, hated), I needed him. I couldn’t just wonder off into the world alone with Death Eaters looking to kill me. I’d been hoping, I think, that he’d offer me protection. Amnesty, possibly After all, I had marked myself as a dead man to get him out. Wasn’t the perfect Gryffindor saviour supposed to do things like protect the people who helped him? I had thought it would be part of the job description.

“What?” he asked, taking a step back towards the couch.

“I—” Damn him, I thought. No way is he making me ask. No way. But no way is he leaving, either. I didn’t plan on spending the rest of my life hiding away in the Shrieking Shack. Harry was giving me a quizzical look. “I—well, where are you planning on going?”

“What’s it to you?” Suspicious. He still didn’t trust me. Of course not, I’d only just saved his life.

“I—well. Interfering, as you may have noticed, hasn’t exactly put me on the Dark Lord’s good side, and—”

This time the understanding that flashed to Harry’s face staid. “You don’t have anywhere to go.”

“Very astute observation, Potter.”

He gave me an exasperated look (I was reminded of the rolled eyes), and crossed his arms. “Try being a little nicer if you want my help.”

“I don’t remember forcing you to make polite conversation before I helped you.”

Harry raised his eyebrows, but nodded. He followed my earlier footsteps, passed where I stood, and walked to the window to look outside. I wondered if he imagined anyone coming through the forest like I had. If so, I imagined he probably he saw the Dark Lord. He stood for a minute, hands clasped behind his back, shifting slightly from foot to foot, like a nervous First Year called to the front of the room to solve a problem. Then, still looking out between those boards, he said softly, “So, you don’t know why we’re here.”

“You mean in the Shrieking Shack? I suppose because it’s not somewhere the Dark Lord would think to look.”

“I suppose so,” he said. He turned on his heal to face me. “What do you want me to do for you?”

I took a second to recover from his direct approach. Perfect Gryffindor indeed. They were blunt, weren’t they? “Well…” I paused. He had invited my request, and pride be damned, it would have been beyond stupid to refuse. “Listen Potter, you’re right. I don’t have anywhere to go, now. All I need is someplace—safe.”

Harry let out a sharp laugh (it didn’t reach his eyes). “If there’s someplace safe anymore, I’d like to know about it,” he said darkly.

“Well, someplace safer than here, then,” I amended.

“Of course. I knew what you meant, Malfoy.”

“Well, you didn’t need to be so cynical about it.”

Harry waved off my complaint, and continued. “You want to go someplace where Death Eaters won’t find you, I suppose.”

“Yes, seeing as I like being alive, that would be ideal.”

Harry gave me a disapproving frown. “Well, Godric’s Hollow is obviously out,” he said to himself, beginning to pace back and forth in front of the window, cutting me out of the decision making process. “There’s always…I guess, there’s really no other option…” Pace, pace, pace. His hand kept leaping to his forehead as he muttered to himself. “How do you feel about coming to The Order’s headquarters?” he asked finally, with a sigh. He gave me a look like he expected me to rage against the idea. As if I was going to pass up the chance to go to the one place the Dark Lord had never managed to find. I’m not stupid, I wanted to tell him. I don’t care if I hate every single member of your precious Order. It was safe, if any place was.

“That sounds just lovely, Potter.”

“Oh. Er—good.” Definitely taken aback.

“As long as they don’t kill me on sight.”

“They won’t,” he said. “Hopefully,” he added with a small smile.

“I truly hope that’s you showing a sense of humour,” I told him.

“Malfoy, it may come as a shock to you, but not everyone is like the Death Eaters. The Order doesn’t kill people on sight.”

“Good.”

We lapsed into silence, Harry leaned back against the window, so that cracks of light seeped in around his head, highlighting his silhouette from behind, throwing his face into shadow. He was frowning, thoughtful though, not angry. I looked down, studied the dirt across my shoes. Waiting. For Harry to do something, for instruction. The transfer of power had happened. The proverbial quaffle was in Harry’s hands now.

(5)

The silence stretched on as Harry stood, thinking, thinking, thinking, and not saying anything. A gust of wind whistled by the window, rattling the boards. The shack creaked, its walls straining to stay together despite the wind and shoddy construction. I thought I heard a crack above us, and jumped a little, remembering that the shack was supposed to be haunted. I shuddered.

“We really should go,” I said.

Harry bit his bottom lip, hard enough to look like it might hurt.

“Potter, we need to go to your precious headquarters,” I repeated. “Before something bad happens.”

“You can’t,” Harry said. “It’s protected by a Secret Keeper.”

Oh. I thought. Great. Bloody fantastic. “And you didn’t tell me this before? I’m not going to go and try to persuade someone else to tell me! I’m not putting myself in anymore dan—”

“You don’t have to do anything,” Harry snapped.

“What?”

“I’ll go. I’ll persuade her—”

“Who?”

“Never mind that. She should be there right now, and I think I can get her to tell you.”

“Think?” I growled. “Think. Potter, you just told me you could take me there.”

If this was Harry’s game, he wasn’t a very good player.

“I did not.”

“You implied it.”

Harry shook his head at me. “Listen Malfoy, I’ll do the best I can.”

I threw my hands up. I didn’t have time for this, any of it. Safety dangled in front of me, and then pulled away. Dangled and pulled, dangled and pulled. I was a mouse chasing a piece of cheese, and every time I thought it was in view, there was another turn. I stalked over to the couch and threw myself onto it. Harry watched me without response.

“Fine. Do the best you can. That sure gives me confidence,” I snarled. “I suppose this means you’re planning on leaving me here alone?”

Harry pulled at the front of his shirt, flaking off spots of blood that had darkened, like ink stains. “Er—yes. I don’t really see any other option.”

“Great.”

“It won’t take me very long.”

“You think.”

Harry looked hurt for a second. As if my lack of faith mattered to him. Of course, I reflected, it probably did. After all, he was used to being considered The-Boy-Who-Could-Do-No-Wrong. Well, too bad for him. I didn’t trust that he would pull through. Why should I? It wasn’t as if anything else was going right.

“Malfoy—”

“It’s fine Potter. Go. I’d just appreciate it if you came back.”

Harry fixed me with a look that was pure condescendence. “I don’t break my promises, Malfoy.”

I sneered at him, and then flipped my legs up onto the couch and lay down. “Good. I’ll be here then,” I said, trying for nonchalance. Sure, I didn’t mind staying in this stupid haunted shack waiting for the Dark Lord to find me. Of course not. I don’t think Harry bought my act (after all, who would have? Even then I knew it wasn’t convincing). But he said nothing, just nodded, fixed me with a final burning look, spun, and disappeared.

::

The shack was silent. Occasionally wind would make the windows rattle, the ceiling groan, but I heard nothing else. Not ghosts, no Death Eaters, no death lurking up the stairs. No Dark Lord come to take his revenge. I lay on the couch, hands folded across my stomach, head twisted to the side, so that I could see the floor. I could make out footprints, Harry’s and mine. Our paths indented into the years of dust. Red light shown through the window boards. The sun was rising, then.

The couch sagged, its springs broken. How old was it? I wondered why ghosts would need a couch. It was uncomfortable, but I didn’t want to stand. I thought about exploring the shack, but only for a second. Why tempt fate? If there were angry spirits hidden in the shadows, I wasn’t about to alert them to my existence. I fingered my wand. It was there, it was solid, it was real. Just in case, I thought.

I turned my head to look at the ceiling. Planks of wood. The planks I’d counted, waiting for Severus. Severus who wasn’t here. My chest contracted. Severus who was somewhere safe. Somewhere safe, I told myself. I tried to think it wasn’t a lie.

I closed my eyes, pushed my thoughts away from Severus. I wouldn’t dwell on something I couldn’t help. I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t think about Severus, or my mother, their faces contorted in pain, sapped of life…no. No, no, no.

Here and now, I reminded myself. Look at the present. I turned onto my side, facing the back of the couch. Up close I could see the threads woven together, brown and grey and darker brown and orange blending together. All ripped up. Tuffs of greyed material stuck around the edges of a gash. I pulled at a piece, rolled it between my figures, twisted it into a tight ball.

Harry Potter. I was waiting for Harry Potter to get back, deliver me to safety. I was relying on Harry Potter. Just the idea of cooperating with him (Harry Potter for Merlin’s sake!) gave me a dizzy feeling, like the world was turning itself on its head. Harry Potter was never supposed to give me a helping hand. I was never supposed to take that hand. Hadn’t we established that so many years before? I had offered him friendship, he had declined. That was that. He was Harry Potter, I was Draco Malfoy and never the twain shall work together.

Years spent fighting, trying to undo each other at every step. I had gone out of my way to torment him—it was, for a time (before bigger things, back when I had time that was my own), a bit of an obsession for me, really. Finding ways to torment him, figuring out the jibes that would cut the deepest (unsurprisingly, barbs against his parents worked wonders). Though let’s be fair: he had returned the favours. Remember, he had almost killed me, once.

And yet, and yet. Here we were. Here I was, waiting for him. What if he didn’t come back? Well, I would have to take my chances, I thought. I could find food somewhere. I could always contact mother, eventually. The mirror was still resting in my pocket. I would get caught. I would get caught, if I drifted through the world alone. By the Death Eaters or the Ministry, one way or the other. But maybe not. Maybe not.

I hoped he came back.

And what if he came back with armed guards and a place for me in Azkaban? I reflected on this. I guess I would be caught early, I decided. Except I didn’t think he would. Harry Potter may have been a lot of things, but dishonest and underhanded were not among his traits. He was impulsive, not manipulative.

At least, I hoped so.

::

Time past, minutes blurred together and the light from the window grew. I lay with my nose right up next to the back of the couch, tracing patterns in the threads and listening, just listening. I didn’t know how long it had been, couldn’t judge if Harry’s continued absence was suspicious or not. I tried not to worry. I tried not to fall asleep, either, despite exhaustion. Exhaustion from running (had that only been a few hours ago? Back when I thought everything would work perfect). Exhaustion from arguing. Exhaustion from worrying and confusion and being so unsure. I bit down hard on the inside of my mouth to keep my eyes from closing. I tasted blood.

I thought, at least it was me hurting myself, not someone else. I thought, this is freedom. This is what I wanted.

Wait, wait, wait. And whatever you do, don’t ever fall asleep.

You’ll be unsurprised to hear he came back, I’m sure. He came back and he was alone, because he is Harry Potter the Perfectly Honourable. The Perfectly Perfect. But you know that, of course. Who in this world doesn’t?

I was still turned into the couch when I heard the noise behind me. A soft pop, a light footstep as he moved forward. I jerked around; nearly rolled off the couch as my heart leapt to my throat. He grinned at me. Amused, exasperated. He held out a bit of parchment.

“What is that?” I asked, righting myself with as much dignity as possible.

“This, Malfoy, is your ticket into the Order’s headquarters,” he said triumphantly.

“Ah.” Fine, I thought. Your best was good enough. And you came back. I stood and walked towards Harry, stopping a few feet away from him. We faced each other, eyes locked. He handed over the parchment.

“You’d better not be a spy, Malfoy,” he said, evenly. I couldn’t tell if it was supposed to be a joke.

“Fuck you, Potter,” I retorted, but with no enthusiasm. We were working together now. Or, at least, not working against each other. I looked at the parchment he had handed me. It said “The headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix may be found at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, London.” I recognized the tight script from so many graded essays.

“McGonagall’s your Secret Keeper?” I asked. Harry gave me a startled glance and nodded. I shrugged. “I wouldn’t have put my money on her.”

“Well, you were wrong.”

“Clearly.” I read the note again. “Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place…isn’t that the old Black house?” I asked, dragging up the connection from somewhere in my tangled memory of family trees.

Harry started again and looked at me sharply. “Yeah,” he said sullenly. “How’d you know?”

I shrugged. “How did your Order get their hands on that place?” I asked. Harry looked down and swallowed, his face going pale. A memory flashed through my mind, a large black dog bounding after the Hogwarts express—“Oh,” I realised. “Sirius Black.”

Harry nodded. “Yeah.”

“Right.” We trailed into silence, and a twang of guilt played at the bottom of my stomach. I remember taunting Harry about Black; my father had told me the identity of “Harry’s” big shaggy dog. How long ago had that been? Back before I ever entered the Dark Lord’s ranks. When war was just a game. I could hardly remember what it felt like, then.

“Okay,” Harry said eventually, his voice shaking just a little. “We should Apparate out of here before anymore time is lost.”

“You’re telling me,” I said. “I’m the one who’s just been laying here!”

“Malfoy,” Harry said, a warning around the edges. Don’t push it.

“Yes, right. Let’s go. Um…Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place?” I repeated, trying to cement the name in my mind. Apparating inside the Shack had been hard enough, and at least I knew what it looked like, where it was.

“Yes. Er…would you prefer to…er…Side-Along Apparate?” Harry asked, glancing down at his right arm as if he didn’t quite understand why he was extending it. Sure, just read my fucking mind, I thought. Was I that obvious?

“I can Apparate by myself, Potter.” Hopefully.

“Are you sure?” he asked, but he dropped his arm immediately.

“Yes, Potter, I’m sure.”

“Good.” Silence. And then: “Well then. On the count of three?” Like we were children.

“Fine Potter. On the count of three.” Number Twelve, Grimmauld place, I repeated to myself as Harry counted. And then he hit three and disappeared. Startled, I lost my concentration. Stupid of me. Gritting my teeth, I refocused. Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place. I closed my eyes and vanished.

::

When I opened my eyes I was standing in the middle of a Muggle street, early morning light falling on houses not much nicer than the ones in Severus’s neighbourhood. I fact, for one frightening moment I thought that I had accidentally returned myself to near Spinner’s End. But then Harry’s voice came from behind me.

“You make it ok?”

“Er—yeah,” I said, trying not to breathe a sigh of relief. “Where are we?”

“London,” Harry said simply.

“How specific.” Harry didn’t reply. “So…which one is Number Twelve?” I asked, scanning the house fronts. Peeling paint, broken windows and loose roof tiles. Nothing like the entrance to the home of one of the oldest and most respectable Wizarding families should be. But as the words left my lips, another house began to grow right in front of me. It expanded, shoving the houses on either side out of the way, until it stood firmly, leering down. “Oh,” I said.

It wasn’t really much grander than the other houses. The paint was flaking and the upper windows were coated with dust. Dirt streaked the walls. The path towards the door was uninviting, but Harry was already making his way down it, so I followed. As we moved closer, I noted that the knocker was fashioned as a snake. That, at least, was appropriate.

We reached the entrance, and I swallowed. This was the second time in so few hours that the prospect of opening a door had made my heart skip a beat. It’s just a door, I told myself. McGonagall’s in there, I told myself. She’s reasonable. She’s not Voldemort. Entering this house is safer than rescuing Harry was.

And look how well that turned out.

I tried to stop my hands from trembling, but I could tell I was still pale. It’s just because you’re tired, I lied to myself. This is no big deal.

Harry was staring at me again, quizzical. “Are you really okay with this?” he asked quietly. Sympathetic. Fuck you, I thought. I don’t need your sympathy.

“Yes, Potter.”

“Because McGonagall knows you’re coming. She’s really fine with it.”

“I really don’t care.”

Harry shrugged. “Fine, have it your way. We’ll go in, then.”

“Right.”

Harry shot me one last sympathetic look (my face flushed. Where did he get off feeling sympathy for me?) and then shoved the door open.

We walked into an entrance hall lit only by a few lamps. The wallpaper was peeling just as the paint outside had been. The carpet was worn and tattered. It was slightly shocking to see. I shouldn’t be surprised, I thought, but I couldn’t help imaging my own Manor fallen into the same disrepair. I envisioned all the proud Wizarding homes decaying, and I told myself not to shudder.

“What? No welcoming committee?” I asked. Harry immediately shushed me. “What?” I whispered, glancing around the dark hall. Hadn’t he said McGonagall knew I was coming? No reason to sneak, then.

Harry pointed at a large portrait, hidden behind mouldy curtains. “Mrs. Black isn’t fun when she’s woken,” he said. I raised an eyebrow and remained silent as we made our way to a door beneath a daunting set of stairs. “We’re going down here,” Harry noted unnecessarily when we got to the door. “McGonagall is meeting us in the kitchen.”

“Great,” I said, without enthusiasm. Harry opened the door and I followed him down. The lights were brighter here—so unlike the stairs to Severus’s basement, I thought—and I could hear voices.

We were met with an explosion of noise and wands at the bottom. Or, more accurately Harry was met with an explosion of people shrieking his name and a redhead slamming into him, and I was met with five wands pointed straight at me. Nice, I thought. They may not kill me on sight, but they sure aren’t embracing me with open arms.

Harry was laughing and hugging Ginny Weasley and Hermione, who was right behind the redhead. Behind them, I saw Ron and his mother seated at the table, beaming at Harry. And around them were McGonagall and Professor Lupin and Moody and Arthur Weasley and a young woman with shocking pink hair I didn’t know (I later learned she was named Tonks, the daughter of my mother’s blood traitor sister), all staring sternly at me, wands raised. I stared back, trying to give a disapproving frown.

“I this how you usually welcome your visitors?” I asked loudly enough to be heard over the girls’ shrieking. They quieted at once, and the smiles melted off of everyone’s faces as they looked at me. No one looked shocked—I supposed they had been alerted to my immanent arrival—but they weren’t pleased. Ron shot me an especially nasty look. I sneered back at him. If they weren’t going to be nice, than neither was I. Something about the wands and the disapproval gave me confidence. After the disorienting tentative truce with Harry, the distrust felt right. “Oh, don’t let me interrupt your happy little reunion,” I said. “I was just going to point out that only one, maybe two, wands are necessary.”

“Malfoy,” Harry said apologetically as he turned to face me. I rolled my eyes at him (ha!).

“This is a nice version of ‘really fine,’” I told him. Surprisingly, he nodded.

“He’s not going to do anything,” Harry told the room at large. “You can lower your wands.”

“Harry, he’s a Death Eater,” Tonks said, her frown deepening.

“He saved my life,” Harry snapped back. I remember feeling strangely appeased by his anger. He turned imploringly to McGonagall. “You said we’d keep him safe.”

“We are keeping him safe,” Moody said. I hated his voice, so much more a growl than anything human. “We’re making sure we’re safe too.”

“What am I going to do?” I sneered. “Attack you all at once? I’m not stupid.” Ron let out a nasty laugh, and I glared at him again. Lupin was sitting next to Ron, and I saw him lower his wand. I was surprised by how grateful that made me. It’s not like I needed their approval. Just a bed and a roof hidden from the Dark Lord.

Harry smiled at Lupin, and then locked eyes with McGonagall. There was that hard look again. It was easier to admire when I wasn’t on the receiving end of it. He does know how to disconcert people, I thought. McGonagall pursed her lips and then lowered her wand.

“As it appears Mr. Malfoy is going to cooperate, I suppose you are right.”

And then drop, drop, drop, the other three put down their wands, though Moody’s magical eye never left me. There was a tense silence as everyone in the room looked at me and I tried to stare them all down at once. They may have been protecting me, but I wasn’t about to let any of them think I’d lost my dignity. Because I hadn’t. I kept telling myself that.

Ginny broke the silence with a sob, throwing her arms back around Harry. He buckled under her weight.

“I was so worried!” she choked out and he laughed, patting her back. He told her he was okay now, and she giggled childishly and nodded.

As if the broken silence had reanimated them—or maybe just because nobody wanted to continue watching Harry and Ginny—the room immediately burst into a bustle. Ron and Hermione moved towards to Harry to join in hugging him, chattering with delight. Moody and Tonks and Lupin and Author Weasley shifted to one end of the table and started whispering urgently to McGonagall, while Molly Weasley swept over to the stove, declaring that Harry and I must me starving. I decided I’d be pushing my luck if I mentioned I’d rather have sleep than food. I stood in place, unhappily aware that Moody’s magical eye was still boring into me. One wrong move, I thought.

It wasn’t the Dark Lord, but I could tell that life in The Order of the Phoenix’s headquarters wasn’t going to be what I had envisioned as my freedom. Still, I thought. Still, I’d rather be here than back there.

At least there was that.

::

Eventually, once his friends had stopped swarming him declaring they were so glad he was alright. So happy. Oh, they were so scared! Harry noticed me standing there, watching McGonagall and her cohorts, trying to hear what they were saying. They kept casting me looks, and I was thinking that it would be nice of them to let me in on the conversation.

After all, didn’t saving Harry’s life count for something?

“Malfoy, come sit down,” Harry said tentatively. I thought I saw the flash of a smirk. As if I was being silly just standing there. As if it were the most obvious thing in the world that moving towards the table wouldn’t result in Moody hexing me to oblivion.

“Maybe I like standing,” I replied irritably. Hermione and Ginny frowned at me. Ron frankly bristled.

“Malfoy, we’re doing you a favour,” he snapped. “You could at least pretend not to be a complete jerk!”

“Ron—” Harry said consolingly.

“Well, Weasel—” I snapped back. (I’ll take this time to admit that perhaps the insult lacked sophistication, since surly you are raising an eyebrow. But it got under his skin, so I never saw any reason to change.)

“Malfoy!” Harry sounded less tolerant. It took me a second to realise I was hurt. Of course he’s taking Ron’s side, I thought bitterly. What had I expected? We may have reached something of a peace, but of course Harry would take his friend’s side. He was a Gryffindor after all. He was Potter. It was easy to slip back into the roles we had always played, now that death wasn’t eminent. And he had always been for Ron. Against me.

But hadn’t he defended me to McGonagall? Somehow I had been hoping that that would continue. That maybe, maybe Harry might stick up for me, just a little. Because no one else at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place was going to. Clearly not.

Fuck him, I thought. Fine. I’m on my own. Fine.

Everyone in the room was quiet. Watching. Waiting. Might as well make a point, I thought. I locked eyes with Ron.

“Weasley, you’d do best to remember why your Order is doing me this great ‘favour.’ If it weren’t for me, Potter would still be locked up, waiting to be killed. You might want to reconsider who owes who what.”

“Oh, please. As if you did it for some noble reason!” Ginny spat from Harry’s side.

“Ginny!” Her mother exclaimed, sending potato peals flying. If I hadn’t been so frustrated I would have laughed.

“What?” Ginny replied, eyes blazing from her tear-streaked face. Her cheeks were flushed under the freckles. She rapped a possessive arm around Harry. “He’s bad.”

I felt a great surge of dislike. I bit my tongue to stop from asking if her parents ever taught her manners.

“Ginny,” Harry said softly, untangling himself from her arms and giving her a look I didn’t understand. It was cold, desperate almost. “Ron. He did, he saved my life.” He gave me a steady look, as if to say ‘see?’

Why did he always have to prove himself noble? I wished he would just choose a side and stick to it. I wanted to know where he stood. Them or me, not trying to please everyone. Things would have been better, maybe, if he had.

But that’s getting ahead of myself.

“Doesn’t make him less of a jerk,” Ron muttered. Hermione shushed him.

“But you said—” Ginny protested.

“I—trust him,” Harry said. And paused, as if saying it out loud surprised him. “Enough to bring him here, at least,” he added after a few moments. The room fell silent, absorbing Harry’s proclamation. I allowed myself a small smirk.

“Mr. Malfoy is under our protection now,” McGonagall said eventually. “By all accounts he saved Harry’s life for good reasons. As such, we will treat him with respect.” She gazed sternly at Ginny and Ron. Ginny sighed and Ron, with a bitter expression, inclined his head. “Mr. Malfoy,” she continued, turning to me. “We expect a full account from you tomorrow, after you have had a chance to sleep.”

I felt a surge of gratitude. So, they do treat people decently here, I thought. Even if they don’t trust me.

Molly Weasley took that moment to announce that soup was ready. Harry rushed to the table and sat, eagerly accepting his bowl. He had hardly eaten in days, of course. I hadn’t even considered how hungry he must have been. He tore into the broth, stopping only to rip off chunks of the roll that had been shoved into his hand. I lingered, watching, until Molly Weasley came towards me, tutting and waving another bowl at my face. She shoved me towards the table.

Shocked by her display of motherly instincts—even if she was much colder than she had been with Harry, crooning and patting his hair—I allowed myself to be guided to the chair next to Harry. I ate. I hadn’t realised how hungry I was until I started. I ate almost as fast as Harry. How long had it been since my last meal? It seemed like forever.

We ate in silence, everyone else watching as if they didn’t know what to make of the scene. They probably didn’t. Ron was still wearing that bitter look, his nose scrunched up and his frown deep. Hermione had her hand on his arm. Ginny was glaring at Harry, as if she were somehow angry at him. I didn’t understand, but didn’t bother to dwell. The adults were exchanging meaningful glances and raising eyebrows. Occasionally Tonks would whisper something in Lupin’s ear.

The click of spoons against empty bowls, a last bite of bread, and Harry and I were swept away. He went with Ron, chatting. Relaxed. As if everything was perfect now. I envied his composure. I tried to imitate it, adding a swagger to my step as I stood. It never crossed my mind that he could have been acting too.

I wound up with Lupin by my side, escorting me to my room. Trudge, trudge, trudge in silence. Up the decrepit main stairs, down a musty hallway. Oppressive house to match Lupin’s oppressive silence. He gave me glances. Wary. Sympathetic. I smirked back at every look, trying to be cocky. Causal. Relaxed. Like Harry. Nothing could faze me. No way I needed his sympathy. No way.

Once it looked like he was going to speak. Sad eyes, mouth opened just a bit, he reached a concerned hand towards me. I had mocked him as cruelly as I knew how in Third Year, and still he was going to be kind. After everything I’d done, and he was going to be kind. I backed away. Casual. Relaxed. Cold. His expression changed for a moment and I wasn’t able to read it. Rejection? Anger? Fear? Understanding?

It was starting to bother me, how many people I couldn’t read. I was good at interpreting expressions. I prided myself on it. But at the Order of the Phoenix there were so many relationships I didn’t know, so many backgrounds and attitudes that were new. It was disorienting. I didn’t know how to react to people I didn’t understand. People who were…what? Hostile? Hostile but welcoming all the same.

So we went on, silent, silent, silent. Our footsteps, muffled by the decaying carpet, still seemed to fill the air. Thud, thud, thud. My head was down, and I had to push back the feeling that I was a prisoner hauled off to his cell. This is not bad, I reminded myself once again. This is freedom. This is not the Dark Lord. This is good. I risked everything for this.

My room was shoved in the back corner of the hall. Small, sparsely furnished (a bed, a dresser, a chair, that’s all) but, I noted, clean. That’s why this is good, I thought. It wasn’t as if they were giving me perfect privacy, not yet: Lupin stood outside the door after locking me in. But at least they cared enough to clean.

At least there was that. At least, at least.

(6)

I dreamt. It was dark all around and there was Severus’s pale face screaming, screaming, screaming. And then it was my mother, shrieking, crying, telling me it was all right, it would be fine. Just run. Be safe. Masked figures lurking behind her, stealing her away. And there I was frozen in place watching as she was dragged off the edges of my mind. And I sobbed and screamed for mother and Severus and yelled I hadn’t meant for them to be hurt. I hadn’t I hadn’t I hadn’t!

And suddenly it was light. A crisp fall day on the Hogwarts ground. Shimmering lake, warm breeze, and Harry sitting under a tree, a book face down in his lap. He turned, face radiant and smiled at me.

“I believe you,” he whispered.

(7)

I woke drenched in sweat, shaking. The room was dark, just as it had been when I feel asleep. I couldn’t say if it had been minutes or hours, and I didn’t care. I had collapsed with my robes still on, and I could feel mother’s mirror digging hard against my side. I pulled it out, barely able to admire the ornate frame in the feeble light coming from the window.

“Okay,” I whispered. I glanced at the door, not doubting that it was still guarded. But this wasn’t going to wait. It had been long enough. I raised the mirror so closely to my mouth that it fogged as I whispered “Mother.” Be there, be there, I thought. Oh, please be there.

And I waited like that, almost kissing the mirror, my heart fluttering near my throat so I that was nearly nauseous. Waited, and pushing back the tears as minutes fell away. “Mother,” I whispered again. “Mother, mother, mother.” And the mirror remained empty. I told myself she wasn’t home, wasn’t available. She had to be careful when to respond. It’s fine, I insisted. Perfectly fine.

I fell asleep with tears running down my face, the mirror clutched near my heart.

::

The next morning I was marched into the kitchen again. This time the door was closed, locked behind me. The adults were all convened around the table. All staring at me as Lupin led me into the room, frowning. Frowning and sceptical. But, and my heart leapt, there was Harry, squished between Moody and Tonks. He gave me an encouraging smile, and I felt the edges of my lips pull up. It was surreal, having Harry Potter being the only person with confidence in me. Definitely surreal.

Lupin dropped himself heavily onto the nearest chair, and I wondered if he had been my only guard all night. Surely not. I stood, even when McGonagall waved me towards a seat. There were bacon and eggs on the table, but I ignored the enticing smell. We weren’t equals, and I wasn’t going play their game. I wasn’t going to sit down at the table and eat breakfast with them while they questioned my integrity. If they were going to act the court, I would damn well stand before it. Stand with my shoulders back, head up, and no tremor in my lips. I bit the inside of my mouth.

“Mr. Malfoy,” McGonagall began, her voice strong, but not necessarily unkind. Certainly I had heard her employ a harsher tone during my detentions than she did then. “Mr. Potter has told us his account. We wish to hear yours.”

I nodded. I almost wanted to ask why Harry’s word wasn’t good enough.

“Where do you want me to start?”

“The beginning.” How specific.

So, I told them. I told them about wanting to escape. About seeing Harry’s capture and fearing what it meant. About Severus and my mother and their plan. About running down the streets and Severus…Severus. I told them about his sacrifice and my lips trembled just a bit. I told them everything until the moment I entered the house.

Everything but the mirror Mother gave me. I didn’t tell them about that. That would be my secret. Just Mother and I.

“So you don’t know what Snape’s plan was?” Moody growled at me. It was hard to tell which was more obvious, his scorn for me or his hatred of Snape. He fixed me with that eye. “You didn’t know what he was planning on doing to Harry?”

“No,” I snapped angrily. “But I just told you he fought off Death Eaters for Harry! He’s out there captured and tortured or...or de…” My whole body was trembling now. I felt myself going pale. “And all to RESCUE HARRY! So before you start—”

“He could have been in league with those Death Eaters!” Moody yelled back, twisting his deformed face. Lupin placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, but it was roughly shrugged off.

“Merlin!” I exclaimed. “That’s UNBELIVABLE! If anything you should be trying to HELP Severus! I can’t believe you’re questioning his motives! HE RESCUED POTTER! I RESCUED POTTER! WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT!?”

My hand flew to my mouth. I had lost control. Lost control. Understandable in retrospect: the pressure had been building and building, the frustration mounting to break the levees of my self-restraint. But I was furious with myself, as furious as I was with Moody, grinning his twisted grin at me like he had just won something.

“Good,” he said simply, and nodded at McGonagall, who smiled at me.

“Of course we believe you, Mr. Malfoy,” she said consolingly. “Now, have some breakfast.”

I stared blankly at her.

That was it? An angry explosion and they believed me?

I was definitely out of my element.

::

I lay sprawled across my bed, on my stomach, reading. This was that afternoon: after an uncomfortable breakfast, (silence, clink of fork, ‘more bacon please’, silence), I had secluded myself. Already the plain room was becoming my sanctuary. Limbo, I had decided. I was in Limbo, judged to be neither enemy nor friend. An odd entity and no one knew what to do with me. I didn’t.

I had tried Mother again, met with no response again. Cried again. But that was the morning, and now I was absorbed in a potions book Lupin had brought me from the library. I was beginning to appreciate his small gestures, even if I couldn’t stand the sympathy in his eyes.

I didn’t notice the door open, barely registered the floorboard creaking before I heard his voice. Harry’s.

“Malfoy.”

I tensed, but didn’t look up. I remember that; deliberately choosing not to look up. I didn’t want him to know that my heart had leapt. I decided I was becoming far too grateful for his presence. Even if he was one of only two people in the house to give me more kindness than distrust, he was still Harry Potter, after all.

“What do you want, Potter?”

He moved forward, tentatively perching himself at the foot of the bed. So hesitant he barely let any weight fall, hardly indented the mattress. I flipped onto my back and stared down my nose at him, resting my book on my chest. Encouraged, I suppose, by my lack of discouragement, Harry settled further, hunching over. Intimidated, unsure. But why was he intimidated by me?

“Listen,” he said softly. And then in a rush: “I’m sorry. About last night. And this morning. They shouldn’t have been so hard on you.” I raised an eyebrow. He sighed, looked down. Traced lines in the covers with his finger. “And…” A pause. Did he not know what to say, or did he not want to say it? Even in retrospect it’s hard to know. I like to think the former. “Well…er…thank you.” He raised his eyes briefly, afraid of my reaction.

“Thank you?” I repeated. “Didn’t you already do that?”

Harry shrugged, looked up and caught my eyes this time. “Maybe. But really, I…just wanted you to know. I’m grateful.” He swallowed hard, a muscle at the edge of his jaw twitching.

I swallowed too. Something about his gaze made my stomach flip. It was burning and sorrowful and understanding. It was honest and raw.

Beautiful, even.

“Well, you’re welcome, then,” I eventually said. I broke eye contact, looked down, pretended to be absorbed in the cover of my book. I ran my finger over the purple leather in the silence, wondering why he was still there, watching me. Wondering why my cheeks felt flushed. We sat like that and sat like that. Maybe it was only a minute but it felt like forever. He tapped a little drum roll on the side of the bed and never took his eyes off my face. At least, I believe he never did: I felt them on me even as I concentrated on not looking at him. Maybe it was my imagination.

What are we doing? I wondered. What is this world where Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy are sitting on the same bed, silent? Shouldn’t we be throwing barbed insults around?

He broke the silence, of course. It wasn’t as if I had anything to say (or so I told myself).

“Listen, Malfoy.”

“Listening.” Keeping my eyes down, but listening.

“They do believe you.”

“I’m glad.”

“I believe you.”

Pause. What did he want me to say?

And then: “I’m glad.”

“I do trust you.”

Wasn’t that the same thing? Believe, trust. Was one deeper? He was looking down now, so maybe trust meant something more to him.

“Good. Great.” That was more sarcastic than I had meant.

He sighed, pressed his palms into his eyes.“Great. Be that way. You’re so fucking defensive,” he muttered, shaking his head.

“Sorry,” I whispered. It was sincere. He stopped shaking his head, bobbed it instead, and stared at me again. Unnerving. “Why are you still in here?” I asked. “You’ve said thank you.”

As soon as I said it I felt a pang of regret. As strange as it was, as much as I hated it, I didn’t want him to leave. Harry Potter, I reminded myself. Harry Potter. But try as I might, I couldn’t quite relate that unsettling stare, that hesitant, understanding figure perched at the end of my bed, with the boy I was supposed to hate. There was none of the cockiness and self-righteousness I despised. No childish insults, no competitive glares. This was someone different.

“I don’t…I don’t know,” he said. “If you want me to leave…” He began to rise.

“You don’t have to,” I said, too quickly to sound nonchalant.

Harry grinned slightly, and sat back down. “Lonely?” he asked, almost condescending. But with enough kindness to take the snap out of my reply.

“Maybe.”

“Do my ears deceive me, or was Draco Malfoy just honest about his feelings?” He full out grinned, then.

“Shut it, Potter,” I mumbled.

“Now, that lacked conviction.” Sarcasm was his version of being warm and friendly, I decided. Who would have guessed? It was also his version of being cruel, after all.

Things change, things stay the same.

“What, do you want me to curse at you?”

“Or just curse me, for that matter. It would be more familiar.”

“Potter, I just rescued you from the Dark Lord. I’m under the protection of your Order. Is any of this familiar?” My voice cracked somewhere in there. I could hear how strained I sounded. I berated myself for letting him see too much, understand my feelings too well. Berated, but didn’t immediately regret.

“No. It’s not.” He studied my face. Again. My cheeks were flushing. Again. How much did he have to look at me? Suddenly, he put out his hand. It hovered stiff and formal a foot away from my face.

“Um…Potter?” I questioned, sitting up a little, letting my book slide into my lap.

“Let’s…start over.”

“Um…start over?

“Yes.” He cocked his head to the side. “I’m Harry Potter, pleased to meet you.”

“What?” I glared at his hand.

“Just introduce yourself.”

“Potter...”

“No, I’m Harry Potter,” he said, waving his hand at me. “Introduce yourself. And shake my hand.”

Shooting him a sceptical look, I did so. We grasped hands only briefly, and I was struck by how warm his was. “This doesn’t change anything,” I warned. “We can’t just start over. The past is the past.”

Harry lowered his head in agreement. “I know. Just…think of it as a…official truce.” He looked up, and once more fixed me with the stare that made me cheeks flush. That’s what I remember about this conversation: green eyes, warm cheeks. “I don’t hate you, Mal—Draco. Draco.” He raised his chin, challenging.

I let myself smile, a little. “And I don’t hate you,” pause. “Harry.”

::

That night I had planned to stay in my room. Try to contact Mother again. Her absence was weighing in the back of my mind. Her absence and Severus’s sacrifice and was there anything I could do, there must be something, something, something!

But Harry came, again interrupting my perusal of a potions book. Another one. Already, monotony was setting in. He nudged the door open with his foot, glanced in uncertainly.

“Ma—Draco.” (“Draco” he whispered again to himself). “There’s supper.”

“And?”

“You should come.”

I sighed, put my book down. “Why? It’s not like Weasley or Granger would be happy to see me.” Or anyone else, I thought. I didn’t fancy the idea of a supper as awkward as breakfast, all full of false politeness.

“Ron and Hermione,” Harry said, his voice slipping away from kindness. Friends still came first, then, I noted. They always would.

“I only remember shaking your hand,” I said pointedly.

His mouth bent into a frown, eyebrows furrowed. He glared; I gazed calmly back. I wasn’t going to let him recognize how much his offer of friendship (not friendship really, but it was the best word I had) meant to me. That I had smiled when he left the room earlier, more elated than I’d been in months; that I was weak enough to need confirmation of goodwill: those were my secrets.

“You aren’t going to get anyone to warm up to you if you just sit in here all day,” he said finally.

“Pot—Harry,” (Merlin, am I really calling him Harry? I wondered), “Do you really think they’re ever going to ‘warm up’ to me?”

“I have.” His tone was defiant. As if to say ‘if I can, anyone can.’

“Yes, well, I saved your life, now didn’t I?”

Harry shrugged, deflating. “Well, you have to eat.”

“I’m perfectly capable of serving myself, thank you,” I replied testily.

“Mrs. Weasley has made a fantastic dinner.”

“Which I would utterly hate to ruin.”

“If you ever want people to help you, you have to at least cooperate!”

“How very Slytherin of you,” I remarked coolly. But I knew he was right. If I ever wanted anything from the Order, (Mother, Severus! I thought), I needed to…not endear myself to them, that was impossible. But I needed to be more than the ex-Death Eater locked in his room.

A strange expression passed over Harry’s face. Reflective, maybe. “When in Rome...” he whispered, and briefly smiled to himself.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he said, snapping his eyes back to me. He ran a hand through his hair. Messy as always. I had never once seen his hair lie flat. “Are you coming?”

“Will you leave me alone if I say no?”

“Of course not,” he replied with a small grin, not quite sure if he should really be joking with me quite yet.

“Then, seeing as I don’t fancy spending the whole night with your head stuck in my door, I guess I have no choice.”

“None at all.”

Walking to supper side by side with Harry Potter was a strange experience. We were accompanied by a silence that was far from comfortable, but not quite awkward. Certainly not as awkward as it should have been. We were beginning to click into place, even then walking in time to each other.

Supper. That was a different matter.

Heads turned from their plates when I walked in. Ginger hair and glares confronted me. Ron with that scowl, Ginny with her blazing eyes. Hermione looked indifferent, but distant. Scornful, I realised. As if she knew she was better than me. The adults hid their thoughts well, managed to pass themselves off as open to my presence. But hostility buzzed through the air and stung at me in sharp glances, hidden frowns.

I quietly took my seat, next to Harry, at the end of one side. McGonagall to my right, at the head, and Lupin across from me. Ron and Hermione and Ginny were down at the other end, and I didn’t pretend to think that the seating was a coincidence. If they had been a clear person to thank, I would have.

Silence was slowly broken: Lupin turned to Tonks, Harry to Moody, Arthur and Molly Weasley to each other. All talked purposefully about nothing. Doing their best to appear normal, I’m sure.

I remained intently quiet, eyes on my plate. Just keep eating, dignified and unobtrusive, I told myself. I relaxed a little as the conversations stopped seeming strained. I could feel the centre of attention slipping away from me, and finally I could appreciate the pot roast and mashed potatoes. I hated to admit it, but Molly Weasley was an excellent cook.

And so my first real dinner at Grimmauld Place almost passed without event. I was about to congratulate myself on a job well done, even. About to begin to feel almost comfortable. And then Harry turned to me.

“How’re you doing?” He asked softly. So he wasn’t ignoring me, even if he was trying to avoid being overheard. I almost told him not to bother: as soon as Harry had turned, Ginny fixed her glare on him. The hard one that has become so emblematic of her in my mind: angry and wanting and determined and very much Gryffindor. She had been staring at him on and off all night: I didn’t look up from my plate much, but when I did, she was always there, looking at him, frowning. Maybe she stared at him the whole meal, I don’t know.

“I’m fine,” I told him quietly.

“Not so bad, is it?”

“No,” I replied. Ginny was nudging Ron; I saw the small toss of her head in our direction. “The food’s good,” I said, a little louder. If she was determined to start a scene, I was going to make sure my part was that of the nice boy being discriminated against. After all, wasn’t that what was happening? Wasn’t I being a good little boy?

Of course, you, my reader, will be pointing to my past, my views, protesting that I was anything but an innocent. And I won’t disagree (though I may have then). But at least I wasn’t rising to the bait: I was looking to move beyond the past, and maybe you can give me credit for that.

Ginny, on the other hand, was apparently not planning on moving beyond anything. I was surprised that she attacked before Ron; after all, I had never focused any particularly vehement scorn towards her. I had earned Ron’s hatred, I knew that. But Ginny had only been of consequence in my mind when she was around Harry; an easy avenue of assault against him.

“You mean you’ve permitted yourself to even touch food made by a blood traitor?” She asked testily.

“Ginny!” Her father exclaimed. “What has gotten into you?”

“Oh, I’m just surprised he’s lowered himself so far as to even sit at our table, and eat Mum’s food. After all, his family has always had such a hatred of us.” Her cheeks flushed, and I wondered if she was thinking of the Riddle diary (you recall the year Hogwarts was almost cancelled, I assume?). Because the sins of the father must always be visited upon the son.

“Ginny, don’t,” Harry said, gentle but firm. I watched their silent conversation, looks I still couldn’t understand, lost. Lost, lost, lost, that’s what I was. Lost. Passive.

I did not escape servitude to silently accept every blow, I reminded myself. There’s a line between playing nice and playing a wimp.

“No,” I said, clearly. The table went silent. “If she has a problem with me, let her tell me.” There. That sounded mature, balanced. Not something a Death Eater would say. I hoped.

Ron blanched, and fixed me with a look of pure loathing. As if I had no right to be rational. Ginny’s lips parted, her eyebrows drew together. It looked as if she wanted to shout back, but a glance around the table told her better. She might have been the favoured, surrounded by friends and family, but I was the polite one, shocking as that was.

“I…” she stuttered, probably not sure if she was allowed to say everything she was thinking. To be fair, if the tables had been turned I would have been equally lost for words. But I still congratulated myself. Maybe I wasn’t getting through dinner with no incident, but at least I had the upper hand now.

“You what?” I probed.

“Nothing. There’s no problem at all,” she said through gritted teeth.

“None?”

“Of course not.” She narrowed her eyes. “You saved Harry’s life, of course there’s no problem.” McGonagall nodded firmly at that; Moody growled to himself.

“As long as that’s understood,” I said smugly, giving her a small, insincere smile. I nodded sharply in Ron’s direction as well; he looked simply murderous. I was surprised, however, to see Hermione giving me a quizzical look. If anyone had a right to hate me it was her, but there she was looking more fascinated than upset.

Mudbloods, I thought. I could never understand them.

“Thank you for the supper,” I said calmly, rising. “It’s been a lovely evening.”

::

And after that...

It’s hard to say, hard to describe, those following weeks. How to convey the, oh, I don’t know what I was feeling. Confusion, contentment, anger, fear, peace. There were no more confrontations: no one made me take meals with the group again, and I steadfastly avoided my peers. (Ginny—Ginny the Antagonistic I called her to myself—disappeared during that week: somehow it was September 1st already and time for Hogwarts. The day before was filled with screaming: she was going back while Ron and Hermione and Harry stayed to help, and she wasn’t happy about it. But her protests went unheeded, and, from the library window I watched her leave, dragging a trunk and sulking).

The adults would give me small nods when I did bump into them, on my way to the library or the kitchen. Lupin and even McGonagall sometimes gave me a smile (though McGonagall was a rare site: I gathered she was spending her time at Hogwarts). Once in the first week Lupin sat with me during breakfast, silently browsing the newspaper.

I did run into Hermione a few times, in the library. I tried not to, never entered when she was there. But I couldn’t stop her coming in after me. She would just look at me like I were some fascinating specimen: cold, but not cold hearted. Clinical, maybe. And then she would ignore me and pursue the shelves intently, brow furrowed. Not just looking for light reading, I could tell you that even then.

And sometimes it would be Harry in the library, pouring over books.

“Are you actually doing homework?” I asked him once. (This was before Ginny left, before I realised he wasn’t going back either). He gave me this look that was just pure frustration and weakly whispered, “No.” I didn’t ask him about again.

But we did talk, Harry and I. He prevented me from being completely lonely, from feeling completely isolated. He stopped by my room at least once a day (often twice, thrice), poking his head in and asking “Are you all right?” Are you all right. As if he had to look out for me. As if I was in dire urge of falling over the edge if he didn’t keep an eye on me. As if daily conversations with him (if they could be called that, still hesitant and meaningless, about the weather and last night’s food and the latest Quidditch match) were possibly the only thing keeping me firmly sane.

Of course, all those as ifs were true. Because when I wasn’t talking to him, all I did was read. But reading had become a constant battle to keep my mind on the page, away from other things. Darker things that gnawed on the back of my mind and kept me up at night and seeped into my nightmares and constantly buzzed, buzzed, buzzed all the time in my head.

Because the days were dragging on (two my mind would buzz. Five. A week. A week!) and still the mirror, a constant weight in my pocket, never showed my mother. I constantly called for her. Every night before finally slipping off into sleep (nightmares, only nightmares; if not dead bodies and the Dark Lord’s cruel face, then the feel of Crucio tearing through my body), every morning as soon as I woke up (sweating, always sweating), through the day when ever the buzzing fear was too persistent. I checked and I checked and she was never there.

And I carried that; the feeling of staring at my reflection, just me. A Sinking feeling, the acid taste of bile in my mouth. It permeated through my drab room, became inextricably linked to my surroundings in just a few days. I still can’t think of the blue flowered comforter, fading around the corners where I picked at loose threads, without my stomach twisting.

And only Harry could dull that pain (a little, but any relief seemed like godsend), distracting me with trivialities. Bits of banter, uncomfortable glances. I didn’t know why he did it (never occurred to me he might have fears to hide from too). But at least he was another human, something real.

::

And what if nothing had changed, if days had gone on and on like that forever? There would be no story to tell, or at the least a very different one. I could have ridden the war out shut away in my room, with histories and spell books and the boy who meant everything in the war as my only companions. I could have been oblivious to bloodshed, rotting away in my fears and lethargy and insignificance.

Maybe I would have gone insane. After all, my head was buzzing, buzzing, buzzing with terrible images all day long.

But that’s inconsequential, what could have happened. Maybe it would have been better than what did—from where I am now it seems like it would have to be, wouldn’t it? But maybe it would have been insanity, or years on years of isolated indifference, and maybe that’s just as bad. Or worse.

But now I’m getting too close to a cliché, something about a life led without feeling is worth nothing, and I don’t do clichés. And besides, that’s getting ahead of myself, the bad things—the worst things, at least, come at the end. I’ve told myself I would tell my story in order, because otherwise I’m going to go skipping the important parts that I don’t want to think about. Like what happened next: the first of two tragedies that I want to ignore but can’t, because they’re the heart of everything, aren’t they?

And so on with it, on with it. After all, the first one wasn’t even my fault.

::

Mother didn’t stay away forever; if she had, nothing would ever have changed, I think. It was on the ninth day, and by that time my head was pounding from lack of sleep. Harry had even commented on how pale I was looking, how thin for the amount of food I claimed to be eating (because my meals were never meals after the first few days, just nibbled bits of bread, a few bites of meat).

I was starting to lose hope, starting to hate myself for ever agreeing to leave, because now mother was gone, and how could it not be forever?

And then there she was. I was staring at the mirror, fighting back tears (a pastime I was starting to take up for hours), and suddenly it wasn’t me looking back anymore. For a few seconds I thought I was hallucinating; then that weight was just gone. I felt the smile break across my face. The mirror began to tremble in my hand as I whispered, “Mother?”

“Draco! My darling!” She was crying, and whispering and I could almost feel what our reunion would have been like, if we could have been together. Hugs and kisses on my head and my face buried in her neck and her hot tears in my hair. But all I had was her image, blurred by my breath on the mirror held inches from my face.

“You’re alive!” I choked out, and she laughed. A comforting laugh.

“Of course I am.”

“I’ve been trying to reach you,” I explained, no longer fighting the relieved tears. “I’ve been trying for days and days and you weren’t…you. weren’t…and I thought…”

“I know,” she said consolingly. “I’m sorry.”

“What did he do to you?”

Her face went cold for a second, but her tone was cheery when she replied, “Nothing. He just had me stay with Bellatrix. He was having the Manor watched, in case you came back.”

“Mother…”

“Draco, I’m fine,” she said, tone final. “It was you I was worried about.”

“Did he believe you?” I insisted.

“I’m alive, aren’t I? But you, how are you?”

“I’m fine, I’m really fine. I’m safe, I’m with—”

“No!” She exclaimed, panicked. She threw her hand to her ears. “Don’t tell me.”

“I thought you said he believed you!”

“He does, but I don’t want a drop of…misplaced Veritaserum giving you away.”

“Veritaserum mother? You think he’s going to use Veritaserum and you’re telling me everything is fine?” My voice was high, but I had never minded letting Mother see me vulnerable.

“Draco, he trusts me. It’s just that if that ever changes…I want to know there’s no way I can lead him to you, that’s all. Just don’t tell me where you are.”

I was glowering, furious and worried. She wanted to comfort me, but I could see the signs of fear, even in that small mirror. The way she hunched her shoulders a little, and flicked nervously at her hair. But what could I do? She said she was safe, and my intervention couldn’t help. But as the wave of joy from seeing her ebbed, I remember who else I was worried for.

“Severus?” I began tentatively. Her face went taught. “Where is he?” I asked more urgently, my chest contracting again. The pain on her face made bile rise in my throat. “He’s alive, isn’t he? He must be alive!”

“Yes,” she said softly. “He’s still alive.” But she was looking down, avoiding my eye.

“Where is he?” I almost asked if he was safe, but I already knew the answer.

She looked up again, straight at me. “Draco, don’t you dare try to help him. Don’t you dare. He risked everything to get you safe—”

“What are they doing to him!?” I felt my voice rise again, shaking.

“He wants you to be safe. Don’t you dare do anything.” She was frantic. I couldn’t see them, but I knew she was wringing her hands, could tell from the movement of her shoulders, the dread on her face.

“They have him,” I pushed; my own heart racing. “He has him.” It wasn’t even a question, and Mother nodded. A tiny nod, as if she hoped I wouldn’t see. “Where?” I insisted.

“No,” she said, tears flowing more freely now, cascading down her face and staining her blue dress. Little black spots like the blood on Harry’s cloths that night a week (more!) before. A week that I had been sitting safe and doing nothing.

“They’re going to kill him, aren’t they?” She didn’t respond. “Aren’t they?” Another tiny nod, a choked sob. “What if I swore I wouldn’t try to save him? Would you tell me where he is?”

“Then you wouldn’t need to know where he is.”

“But there are…people here. People who might help.”

“Draco…”

“Are you going to just let him die?”

“Draco, he knew the risks—”

“I can help!” Practically screaming now and I my face was sleek and hot with tears, and why couldn’t she just tell me?

She looked hurt for a second: I rarely yelled at her. I knew she wanted to break down, wanted to do anything she could to save Severus. Anything but put me in danger. Malfoys don’t give friendship lightly, but once the bond is there it’s strong.

“Mother,” I said, gently now, trying to calm my shaking hands. I rubbed one cheek in an attempt to dry it. “I promise that I won’t go after him myself. But I’ll do everything I can to get him help, if you just tell me where.”

She nodded, this time larger, and maybe to herself. “The dungeons beneath the Carrow Manor,” she whispered. “Constantly guarded,” she added.

“Thank you.” I pressed my lips to the glass. “I love you.”

“I love you too, my angel.” Her voice was barely above nothing, thin and distressed. “Don’t go looking for him yourself,” she pleaded one last time.

“Of course mother,” I intoned, and then the mirror went blank.

::

I burst into the kitchen, panting from running down flights of stairs. Harry was sitting with Moody and Lupin, examining a book. They all looked up sharply as I slammed the door open, and I saw the book discreetly disappear beneath the table as I caught my breath.

“Mr. Malfoy!” Lupin exclaimed, sounding both scandalized and worried.

“What’s wrong?” Harry asked quickly.

“Severus!” I gasped out. The room went cold. “He’s in trouble!” I glanced around at the darkened faces. Nobody looked ready to jump out of their seats. “We’ve got to help him,” I implored. “I know where he is.”

Even Harry was regarding me coolly. What had I expected? Not the sudden rush of energy that I would have gotten if I had rushed in announcing a Weasley’s capture, certainly. But…something. Hadn’t I made it clear that Severus was just as responsible for Harry’s rescue as me? I thought that that should count for something, should stop them from staring at me like I was crazy for suggesting that they might want to do something.

“He’s going to die!” I insisted.

“And how exactly do you know this, boy?” Moody asked, swinging his magical eye up and down my body, as if he was going to find incriminating evidence. My heart skipped a beat: I still wasn’t going to tell them about the mirror. I just knew Moody, if no one else, would insist on taking it, and I wasn’t about to give my only link to my mother to a crazed ex-Auror. I didn’t trust that he would believe me if I explained that she only stayed for my father.

“I…received a message from my mother,” I said, looking down. Moody raised a misshapen eyebrow.

“You’re still in contact with your mother?” he growled. Next to him Harry’s face was pallid, and I wondered if this was all it took to undo our tentative friendship. It was incriminating to talk to my own damn mother. My resolve to keep the mirror a secret hardened.

“I’m not ‘in contact’ with her. She sent me a letter.”

“Where is it?” Moody’s eye swung over me again.

“I burned it,” I replied, no hint of hesitation. Lying was easy. It was convincing them that my lie meant I was guiltless that might be hard.

“I see,” Moody said in a tone that indicated he did not at all see things the way I hoped he would.

“To keep her safe,” I added, letting my glaze drift to Harry briefly. He wasn’t the only one who protected the ones he loved, and I wanted to make sure he understood that. Understood that saving Severus was not about sides, it was about saving a life, a life that mattered to me. He caught my eye, but his look had no understanding. It was angry.

“Why would we help him?” he snapped. His utter hostility startled me. I flashed back to the Shrieking Shack, his hatred then as well. I remembered thinking that somehow he knew what had happened, that Severus had killed Dumbledore. I toyed with the thought again. Perhaps they had assumed. Perhaps Severus had said something as he fought off Harry (he did, fight Harry that is, as we were escaping from Hogwarts).

“You should help him,” I said slowly, “because he helped you.”

“Yeah, sure,” Harry scoffed.

“I thought you believed me.”

“We do,” Lupin cut in. “We believe that you had good intentions.”

“Snape is a different matter,” Moody growled. He scuffed his false foot against the ground, a threatening clink. “Snape we don’t trust at all.”

They know, I thought. They must know. There is no other explanation. But…I wasn’t going to bring it up, in case I was wrong.

“Why?” I prodded, heat rising to my face. I was starting to lose it: every second they wasted over something they didn’t understand was another second hastening Severus’s death. I wasn’t even sure that I wanted to control myself anymore. Screw pretences, I thought. They were either going to admit to knowing or help. Losing control had convinced them of my innocence, maybe it would help again. Clearly the Order worked in ways I was only beginning to comprehend. “It was his plan, his and my mothers. He sacrificed himself. He did everything, and the least you could do is care that he’s going to die for it!” I stared them all down, one by one. Chew on that. He’s going to die for you, I thought as I stared at Harry. Time to be the hero.

Harry responded first, his voice constrained but trembling, barely controlled. “He deserves it.”

“Oh really? For what, giving you detention?” I snarked back. There is was, the challenge: tell me why you hate him. Because we all knew it wasn’t a schoolyard grudge: Harry may have been overly emotional, but he wasn’t completely irrational. Even I would admit that.

Harry paused, glanced around at the adults as if looking for confirmation. His cheeks flushed slightly as he whispered, “I was there.”

That caught me off guard, cut my adrenalin rush short. “What?”

“That night,” he said, louder. “I was there, Draco. At the Astronomy tower.”

“No you weren’t,” I said, insistent. Disbelieving. It wasn’t possible. That tower was tiny, and he had been nowhere in sight. I had gotten Dumbledore alone. It was my triumph, the reason Voldemort didn’t kill me. “No you weren’t.”

“Yes,” Harry said calmly. But he was clearly seething beneath his composed demeanour. “I was. Invisible an