After carefully arranging Harry on a couch, he summoned a rejuvenation draught laced with a pain reliever. It was a very short-term solution, but he didn't need the boy falling asleep and slipping into a coma. He could very well have sustained a severe head injury, convulsing under Lucius's Cruciatus.

As soon as he felt assured Harry would remain conscious, Snape cast a diagnostic spell, and was relieved to find that he was in no immediate danger. Slight concussion, several superficial injuries and a few slightly more serious ones, but nothing that would end up killing him.

Snape let out the breath he'd been holding, and turned his attention first to Harry's shattered kneecap. This one seemed to have the most potential for long-term damage, not to mention the most potential for excruciating pain once his nerves recovered. Best not send Potter back to Hogwarts with a permanent limp, or Minerva would accost him in a most unpleasant manner--

"What are you doing?"

Harry's voice was hoarse. From screaming, Snape realized, internally cursing himself for encouraging the boy to provoke Malfoy. Whatever he'd envisioned for ensnaring Lucius, this had not been it.

He felt oddly ill. It was one thing to bandy about the Imperius Curse-- it was more common and easier to wield than the ministry would admit-- but it was quite another to use the Cruciatus Curse. Severus hadn't expected even Lucius Malfoy to indulge in it, especially upon such an unequal opponent.

Perhaps Azkaban had quite unhinged the man.

"Your knee is severely damaged," Snape informed him.

"Oh." He glanced up at the boy's face, and noticed that Harry was staring, rapt, at some fixed point on the ceiling. "I think I fell on it a couple of times." The green eyes drifted downwards, as the boy stared with some morbid fascination at his twitching limbs. "They didn't do that last time."

Snape stiffened imperceptibly; he'd heard all about the Triwizard Tournament, from both the Headmaster and the Death Eaters who still relished having seen the famous Boy-Who-Lived writing in agony. Of course, he doubted the Dark Lord had cursed him nearly so severely as this. There was no way Harry would have dragged himself back to Hogwarts in this condition, much less that Diggory boy.

The curse had been long; almost too long. He'd been alerted immediately to Malfoy's use of the Unforgivable, and the suddenness of it caught him by surprise. He'd only departed Harry's company a half-hour earlier. He hadn't realized Lucius was even awake.

Lucius had somehow warded the garden, because it had taken Snape nearly two minutes to break through the barrier.

Nothing had prepared him for what he found, though. Nothing.

I should have killed him, Snape thought vindictively, clutching his fist tighter about his wand.

He felt Harry start against him, and only then realized his wand had begun to spark with his fury. Snape quickly forced the anger to the back of his consciousness, and caught a somewhat horrified look on Harry's face before he abruptly returned his attention to the ceiling.

He forced his attention back to Harry's knee, trying not to dwell upon the fact that Lucius could have given him a no stronger 'fuck you' than casting the Cruciatus Curse on a child Snape was supposed to be protecting.

And I could not have been more of a fool, piquing Lucius's interest in him.

Snape couldn't say exactly what it was; perhaps it had been something increasingly skittish in Harry's manner, or something increasingly menacing about Lucius. He simply knew at this moment, that he could pin down the very instant when Lucius's interest in the boy turned predatory.

"Not all of us, Severus, have such casual malice towards our own kin."

And he'd reacted. Reacted, like an undisciplined fool. He never reacted to anything. He was a spy. A master Occlumens. And he knew full well that Lucius could see any expression that so briefly flickered over a human face. Why had that statement slipped past his guard?

Together with that unfortunate moment in the garden, when Lucius had caught Snape staring, appalled, at some perceived intimacy between the two… That had done it.

When Snape looked over it, he could track every change in Lucius back to something he himself had done. 'Septimus' would have remained a diverting amusement for a lonely escapee, if Severus hadn't virtually trickled blood in the water for a ravenous shark.

And what would the Headmaster say, when he brought Harry back to Hogwarts, having endured such a traumatizing experience? Dumbledore would never forgive him for this; he would realize he was right, all along… How could he win Dumbledore's confidence back? Could he win Dumbledore's confidence back?

He was startled out of his thoughts by a hoarse voice.

"You called me 'Harry'," the boy said. "You asked me if I could walk."

Snape looked sharply up from where he knelt, healing Harry's leg. He'd called the boy by his first name?

Had he really?

His thoughts stretched back to the moment, and Snape was disconcerted to find that he had, indeed, addressed the boy by his given name.

He stopped his ministrations for a long moment, frozen, watching Harry's face.

He hadn't really believed, when he carried him back into the house, that Harry was even coherent; he supposed the slip was due to that unguarded moment. He was disconcerted to find Harry now calling him on it. It was as though Harry were confronting directly some shift in Snape's regard.

Snape was overcome by a dreadful feeling of exposure, as though Harry had just peeled open his skin to glimpse into his very thoughts.

A range of responses flew to his tongue, from scathing to indifferent. He almost settled on a dismissive, 'I hadn't noticed', to a perfunctory excuse about needing to ensure Harry was conscious… but something stopped him. He knew exactly what path those words would lead him down, but some inexplicable impulse held him back from plunging into that comfortable familiarity.

"So I did," Snape acknowledged in a level tone.

His palms flattened against the fabric of the couch on either side of Harry's knee, and he waited for his response with an odd, leaping feeling in his stomach.

Nerves, Snape realized, utterly appalled.

For the first time since they'd returned from the yard, Harry's eyes shifted from that distant spot on the ceiling he'd been examining, to meet Snape's.

"You killed Malfoy, then, didn't you?" Harry asked hoarsely. "You wouldn't have said my name if he weren't already dead."

For a full two seconds, Snape's brain failed to process the words. When they finally sorted out in his head, he fully comprehended that Harry had raised the issue because he was worried about Lucius, and suddenly he wanted to strangle the little brat.

"What do you care?" he snarled, jabbing his wand a tad too harshly as he resumed healing Harry's knee, nicking the swollen flesh and evoking a sharp hiss from the boy. "I suppose you fear you'll have less fodder for self-pity without Lucius around to torture you!"

"I never wanted him to die." Something odd in Potter's tone dragged Snape's gaze back up again, and he found the boy rubbing furiously at his forehead with his still-trembling arm. "I didn't mean to kill him… I didn't!"

"For Merlin's sake, Potter," Snape said harshly. "Even if Lucius Malfoy were currently dead, rather than stupefied in the backyard, he would have died because I made a conscious decision to kill him." Irritation bubbled through him at Harry's unwavering mask of anguish. "It's presumptuous of you to claim responsibility for the actions of others. You may be Dumbledore's precious little celebrity, but you hold no sway over me… Nor will you ever."

Harry still sat there, staring at him with haunted green eyes, raking his forehead with his fingernails. The gesture irritated Snape to no end.

"Are you a canine, battling fleas?" Snape demanded, snatching Harry's hand from his face and pressing it harshly into the cushion next to the boy's torso. "Lie still!"

After holding his arm there for several seconds, he felt the weak resistance die, leaving only the convulsive trembling of Harry's limbs, twitching against his grip.

The knee was about as repaired as it would get; he would have to bring Potter to the hospital wing once they returned to Hogwarts, but he was fairly satisfied the boy would have no permanent limp thanks to his quick handiwork.

He resumed his diagnostic spell, and it led his wand up to the boy's chest. Snape felt a pang of unease, wondering if it was something internal, but parting the torn folds of Harry's robe revealed his chest, rivulets of blood seeping from tears that seemed to have been left by fingernails.

"How did this happen, Potter?" Snape asked carefully, summoning a healing draught for this one.

Harry weakly lifted his head, and appeared mildly surprised at the sight of his bloody chest.

"Oh," he said breathlessly, one of his hands creeping up to touch a wound as if to verify it was there. "I can't even feel them…"

Snape shoved his hand away. "Don't poke at it, boy."

Harry's head slumped back; he was breathing heavily as though he'd exerted himself. "I dunno how. Maybe during the, er, the blood-boiling curse. I was kind of… clawing at things, must have done it to myself, too. Right through the robes, I suppose."

Snape stared at him. "Malfoy used a blood-boiling curse on you?"

Harry gave a weak, rueful laugh, then clutched his ribs quickly as though to keep them in place. "No, I used it on me. Something about… blood purity… made it bounce…" The haziness that had slowly stolen over his expression suddenly cleared, and with a sharp intake of breath, Harry pushed himself upright. "Oh-- oh no! Snape, he knows, he knows!"

Snape grasped Harry's thin shoulders and shoved him back down.

"What are you talking about?" he demanded, although he had a creeping feeling he knew exactly what the boy was talking about. He knew well what happened to a half-blood who used one of those kinship curses on a pureblood. If Harry cursed Malfoy, and the curse was returned to him, Lucius would have guessed immediately he was not a pureblood.

So… Lucius knew he was harboring a mysterious half-blood. That was treachery in itself, a slap in the face of the Dark Lord. The slightest deviation from the Dark Lord's ideology was seen as a sign of treason in the eyes of the Death Eaters. Snape would be punished, if not executed.

Perhaps he would be killing Lucius today, after all.

He felt a fleeting sense of remorse; there had been a time in his life, after all, when Lucius had been his only ally. But it evaporated the instant he remembered what the man had done just a few minutes earlier.

"He knows I'm a half-blood. He said the curse only came back to me because I was impure. I pretended I didn't know… That I was upset…" Harry croaked "I think… I'm pretty sure I convinced him that my mother had an affair, that I was just a bastard of some sort, but, uh, he knows."

A knot loosened in Snape's chest.

"Leave the little bastard."

Could Harry Potter have successfully deceived Lucius Malfoy?

It was actually a damn good excuse. It was not unheard of for a half-blood to slip into a pureblood line somewhere or other due to sexual promiscuity.

It part of the reason why there were so many kinship curses.

"You came up with that story yourself?" Snape asked, reluctantly impressed.

"No, Lucius made it up for me," was Harry's sarcastic reply.

Snape would grant he'd just asked an idiotic question, but he did not appreciate the boy pointing that idiocy out to him.

"Quiet, and hold still, Potter," he said brusquely, running his wand up to the boy's neck and over the strained tendons there. "You may very well have rescued us from the consequences of your stupidity. I congratulate you. A pity you haven't managed to do so in previous situations."

Harry shivered, his eyes growing cloudy, staring inward.

Black. Snape didn't have to legilimize him to know the damn boy was thinking about Black… again!

"Care to enlighten me, as to just what you thought you were doing with that curse?" Snape said, catching Harry's eye and forcing the boy away from whatever he was thinking.

Harry blinked at him. "I provoked him. You asked me to."

"I would not have condoned something so foolhardy as casting a blood-boiling curse on a Death Eater!" Snape snarled, his irritation rising in full force. "You're fortunate he did not use the Killing Curse on you in return!"

A smirk curled Harry's lips. "That would be an Unforgivable, too."

Snape's fists clenched; fury at this impertinent little brat pumped through him. How dare he, how dare he turn this into a joke!

"Malfoy taught me," Harry added, closing his eyes heavily. "I wanted to test it on him before--"He fell silent.

"Before?" Snape demanded.

Harry's eyes opened again, utterly expressionless-- a strange look on this boy. "Before I used one on Bellatrix Lestrange." He sighed. "I don't-- it won't happen now. Even if I could cast one without… without feeling it myself…"

He reached up to rub almost convulsively at his forehead.

"I gave you that book to use on the Muggles, Potter," Snape informed him coldly, inwardly cringing at another foolish thing he'd done since the boy had arrived here.

Perhaps stupidity is contagious, Snape thought, remembering just how brilliant and dastardly his plan of severing Harry from the Headmaster had seemed, back when he'd so carelessly proffered that dangerous item into Harry's hands.

He hadn't once given thought to the other things Harry could use it for. Why…

"You lied to me!" Snape said, his surprise at the realization overcoming his fury.

Harry had lied. And he'd believed him

"I never lied to you," Harry said tonelessly, his eyes sinking closed again. "I just never told you the truth."

Snape was still staring at him. He couldn’t believe the boy had mislead him. He always knew when Potter was lying. Always.

Snape noticed that Harry's eyes were still closed. The effects of the rejuvenation draught had to be waning.

"Go to sleep, Potter," Snape commanded gruffly.

He was inwardly reeling. How had the boy tricked him so easily?

It was in many ways a relief Harry was at last succumbing to exhaustion. Snape disliked how quickly the exchange had slipped from his grasp.

And… sleep would do the boy good. Snape could only administer the opiated draught once in a period of 48 hours, and he planned to save that until he was fully awake when he'd most need it. Sleep would be enough, for now, to battle the lingering effects of the curse.

In the meantime, he had a Dark Lord to appease, and a Malfoy to humiliate.

* * *

Only Lucius Malfoy could project an air of haughtiness as he lay on the ground, trussed up like a prize turkey.

Snape lingered a moment at the edge of the clearing, savoring the spectacle. He even made certain Lucius had spotted him before stopping to savor. It was positively delightful, the way the man's pale skin flushed into an almost… dare he say, Weasley shade of red?

"Severus!" Lucius bellowed. The man instinctively jerked at his robes, but quickly stilled in his movements, as though realizing his struggle was undignified. "Release me at once!"

"Oh, in a minute," Snape promised lazily. He crossed the lawn to lower himself across from the other Death Eater. He probably could have prevented his expression from reflected his amusement at this scene, but really-- why bother?

Malfoy was watching him through flinty, gray eyes. The shudders wracking his body seemed to stem from his fury as much as from nerve damage caused by the Cruciatus; Snape watched it with pleasure.

"You won't get away with this!" Lucius declared.

Malfoy's fury seemed laced with a desperate, almost hysterical anger. Snape watched him, amazed. Every once in a while, he was struck by just how much Draco reminded him of his father. This, however, was the first time he'd looked at Lucius and found himself reminded starkly of the son.

"Actually, Lucius, I already have," Snape informed gleefully. The rays of the mid-morning sun were beating down on his skin, and Severus made a show of stretching languidly in the warmth. "In fact, I visited our master while you were still… indisposed, and he agreed that your recklessness should no longer be tolerated, nor your arrogance indulged."

Lucius's lips thinned into a grim line. "He will change his mind."

"Perhaps," Snape said indifferently. "But not before he's corrected your insolence."

Lucius stared at him, something resembling horror flowering in his eyes. Snape was fully aware that he'd never been subjected to the Dark Lord's Cruciatus Curse, as every other Death Eater had been upon one occasion or another.

"He would not do that to me," Malfoy insisted. There was uncertainty in his tone, though, and it made Snape laugh out loud.

"Yes, six months ago, he wouldn’t have." Snape ran his finger across the line of his own lips, watching Malfoy intently, wanting to savor his every facial inflection. "After all, you were too powerful, too mighty for even the Dark Lord to dare curse. But you see, Lucius, without your position or your wealth, he no longer has to pretend he holds you in any particular regard… He can acknowledge openly what the rest of the wizarding world has known all along."

"And what is that?" Lucius demanded, his voice hard.

"That nobody truly cares about the 'Malfoy' name," Snape said delicately, "apart from the Malfoys."

That impotent fury again. Ah, Snape savored it.

"That's not true--"

"Oh, but it is," Snape said softly, leaning closer to the bound man. "You were nothing more than a resource to the Dark Lord; he accorded you privilege because you were valuable. When I return you to him, and you see just how those privileges have been revoked, well…" Snape smiled maliciously. "You'll remember my words."

"I find it interesting," Malfoy said, eyes glittering into Snape's with sheer hatred, "that you continue to provoke me when you've just exposed to me a potent weakness."

Snape stared at him, uncertain now just where this was going.

Malfoy read his confusion, and smiled viciously. "Do you truly believe the Cruciatus Curse is the worst thing I could do to your little nephew?" he whispered, gray eyes glinting malevolently. "He won't be in your care for long, Severus. Do you honestly believe I'll allow any power in this universe to hide him from me, after what you've done today? How long will he be out there, unprotected, utterly vulnerable, before I find him?"

Oh. Well, Snape wasn't too worried there. If Lucius chose to torment himself over a boy who did not even exist, he was free to do so.

"Go right ahead," Snape said gamely. "In fact… I had been meaning to learn more of your association with him. Legilimens."

The spell caught Lucius by surprise. The man resisted him for a full minute before he buckled under Snape's attack, and memories flooded the latter's mind.

Casting the Cruciatus Curse on Septimus… Running his fingers through the distraught boy's hair… Watching Septimus feed the ducks, feeling that strange warmth rekindle that he'd lost in Azkaban… Letting Septimus drop to the ground, stunned that he'd thrown off the Imperius... Casting the killing curse on the blasted house-elf himself over the boy's disoriented form… Laughing in sheer delight, realizing the accursed child had only now realized he was the product of a promiscuous whore…

Snape rifled freely through Lucius's memories until he found that last one, the one he'd been searching for. He called up several more images, simply to misdirect Lucius if he later wondered what Snape had been searching for, before surrendering to a malicious impulse and delving into several forbidden realms of the man's mind… simply because he could. He readily unearthed a string of embarrassing moments from Malfoy's childhood. Then:

Narcissa looked him over with distaste. "Julian is a far superior lover, Lucius, but I suppose it could also be attributed to a simple anatomical issue…" He felt a coil of fury and shame when her eyes flickered pointedly downwards, and he would have throttled the bitch if it weren't for Bellatrix's cackling laugh across the room…

Oh, that one was perfect.

"Why, Lucius, I never knew…" Snape purred, ending the spell.

Malfoy was huddled before him in the yard, still bound. The expression of absolute humiliation on his face was satisfaction enough for Snape, and he cancelled the binding spell, still leaving his wand trained on his opponent.

"Tell me, Lucius," Snape said coldly, still processing Malfoy's memories, "Was terrorizing a teenager like some common Muggle predator truly so gratifying for you? Did it for one instant help you forget you are an impotent disgrace to wizardkind?"

He grasped the still-distraught blonde by the arm, and directed him harshly back towards the house. The man stumbled passively in his grasp for their journey back, only showing signs of life when his eyes flickered with sheer greed at spotting his wand on the table by the floo.

"I'll make you pay for this, Severus," Lucius vowed softly, staring longingly at his wand. "You wait!"

Malfoy's deadly gray eyes returned to Snape's, as though the man wished to impress upon Severus the sincerity of his threats. Snape cut him off abruptly, tossing down a handful of floo powder and shouting, "Nott Manor!"

He shoved Lucius into the floo without another word.

After a moment's consideration, Snape tossed the man's wand in behind him. He could afford to be gracious.

After all, he'd won.

* * *

Snape had returned to his lab, aware that the boy would wake up soon enough, and he wanted to have a potion on hand to give Harry straightaway.

It was in this manner that he found himself still there, several minutes later, staring at the vials of the opiated calming draught, an odd feeling welling in his stomach.

There wasn't nearly enough. There should be more. The recipe made at least ten batches. And the boy had followed the recipe. Snape knew that; apart from a tad too much asphodel, the draught had been perfect.

He could remember now Harry's glassy expression, the night before. He'd written it off purely to distress. But… There were two doses gone. One Snape had imbibed himself, and the other…

He clutched the table, reeling under the implications of it.

Harry had taken it already today; or Lucius had fed it to him. Either way…

Malfoy had used the Cruciatus Curse already. He'd used it earlier, and obviously to such an extent that Harry had required a dose for himself.

Harry had known full well how Lucius would retaliate. It was not naiveté, it was not stupidity. He'd known, he'd known, he'd known…

Snape mechanically parceled out a sleeping draught, instead; at Potter's size, there was certainly no way his system could handle two doses of the opiate within a day. All he could hope to do was put him to sleep through the after-effects of the curse.

He returned to Harry's side, and paused, watching the boy rouse from his sleep, nameless feelings raging through him.

He planned this out. The thought only now occurred to him, meeting Harry's gaze as he opened his eyes and tiredly looked over Snape's expression, and the draught in his hand. The thin body still shook furiously, but only now did Severus recognize the clarity in his eyes.

He'd planned everything, hadn't he? He'd taken advantage of Malfoy's resentment of Snape to wrangle those curses out of the man, taken advantage of Snape's anger towards Dumbledore to get that book from Snape, allowed Snape and Malfoy to tangle for several days simply to play them both against each other… Harry Potter was a Scheming. Little. Bastard.

It had never occurred to him that Harry might have ulterior motives. He'd simply never lent the boy that much credence, to entertain the thought that he was wrangling something out of him.

He's my son… Snape realized suddenly.

The thought was horrifying, frightening, because it made more sense now than it ever had before, it struck home the way it hadn't when he was gazing at the guileless face of James Potter's brat.

This boy had never been the son of James Potter. He had never been the empty-headed Gryffindor. He was a scheming, plotting, vicious little Slytherin with the face of a…

What had this been about? Really about? It was more than helping Snape rid them of Malfoy; it was more than striking back at Malfoy for the events of earlier in the day.

It was… It was…

"Did you get what you wanted out of this farce?" demanded Snape harshly.

Harry blinked at him, confused. "What are you talking about?"

Snape thrust the sleeping draught to his lips, and practically it forced down the boy's throat. He couldn’t pinpoint just why he felt so angry.

He looked on in quiet rage as Harry's features slackened, the pain never quite fading, but the energy draining steadily. Heavy lids closed over green eyes.

An then the question was nagging at him relentlessly, one that he should have asked ages ago.

"A cupboard, Potter--"

The sleeping draught was rapidly taking effect, and Potter barely looked at him through green eyes rapidly fogging over.

"Why a cupboard?" Snape could see that the boy was blinking heavily, and knew he was about to fall asleep. He strode over to his side and planted his hands on the cushion on either side of his face, leaning closer, a sense of urgency stealing over him. This was not something he wanted to wait to hear.

"The Muggles were abusing you, sticking you in a cupboard. You know that. Why do you need it for Occlumency? Why is it soothing?"

Potter's eyes slipped closed, and Snape grasped him by the shoulder and shook him. "Potter!"

But Harry didn't open his eyes. He was sound asleep.