Harry hoped to catch Severus's attention on the way out of lunch, but his seat at the staff table remained empty. Remus received an owl halfway through the meal and hurried away. Harry wished he trusted an owl to get a completely private word to his father.

After Hermione left for the library, Harry fetched his cloak and slipped down to the dungeons. When he got to Severus's rooms, no light came from under the door. Harry made a sudden decision. He would go inside, then hide in his bedroom until Severus returned. That should be safe. He whispered the password, and the door swung silently open.

Harry shut the door behind him before daring wandlight. The parlor was genuinely empty. Harry wondered if Severus had been summoned. Halfway to the door, he hesitated. He should go straight to his room ... but he hadn't brought any work or amusements with him. Perhaps he should take a book.

Harry swept his wandlight across a low shelf. The glint of silver on dark leather caught his eye -- not a title, but the graphic of a trap, teethed and deadly. He pulled out the thin volume. Curses to Take Men's Souls, it read.

Harry's hand clenched around the book, and he froze, unable to force himself push it back into the close-pressed volumes. His gaze returned to the embossed design. Disgust raised bile in his throat. Souls.... But that is what we need, is it not? his mind urged. Killing Voldemort's body has not been effective. If we could destroy his soul, or effectively entrap it.... Harry stood, staring down at the yet unopened book, paralyzed with indecision.

The door began to open. Light stabbed in from the hallway like a giant gleaming blade, and swept towards him. The kitchen door was on the other side of that encroaching sword. Harry, desperate, dived behind the couch. He landed with an audible thump, preserving his wand, but losing the book, which slid away. He scrambled to get his hood up, and his feet drawn under the cloak.

"Petrificalus!"

The spell was aimed blindly towards the sound, and missed him. More than one set of footsteps clattered into the room. Cold terror clawed at Harry's gut. Severus was not alone, which meant he could face far worse than a lecture on discretion. Harry stretched to see between the couch legs, but he was too far back to distinguish more than polished black leather glimmering slightly from beneath a low sweep of dull black fabric -- a robe or cape. He reached a covered hand out to the book, which had stopped just at the edge of the shadow of the couch, but it was too far away to retrieve without exposing his arm.

The footsteps approached more cautiously.

"I think it was over here, sir."

Draco! Harry almost relaxed, then caught himself. A Death Eater might be better. With Draco, we can't count on anything -- and Severus will continue to spy if his betrayal is uncertain.

The footsteps came closer yet. Draco peered down behind the couch, then looked curiously under it. Grey eyes, stretched open to catch all the available light, stared intently through his quarry. Harry tried to breathe without sound.

"Anything?" Severus asked.

"Just a book." Draco pushed back and stood. Just as Harry was restraining a sigh of relief, the couch shifted forward. Harry knew he was still invisible, but he felt far more exposed. Draco stepped closer.

"Odd. It doesn't look --" He shifted around to get a better look, and his polished shoe came down on Harry's hand.

Something crunched. The pain was agonizing. Harry's body twitched with it as he fought to control his lungs. In terror and defiance, Harry managed not to scream, but no amount of angry control could keep the first harsh breath from audible release. Draco jumped back, yelping.

"Mr. Malfoy!"

"I'm fine." Draco stepped forward again.

Harry thought his hand would burst apart from the pain. He bit his tongue and tried to stay largely still, though his body wanted the comfort of motion. He did not register the sight of Draco's foot sliding along the floor until it encountered his damaged hand. He muffled a hiss into the thick robe over his shoulder. Draco raised the toe of his shoe and rocked it forward and down with deliberate pressure. Harry's body wanted to yank the hand back, to curl around it, to arch up under the pain. His world shrank to locking himself in place, to leaking agony out in quiet whimpers pressed into muffling cloth. Hurts hurts hurts hurts....

Draco said something. His voice was distant, sly, and pleased.

"Harry James idiot Potter!" another voice snapped.

Draco gasped and twitched back. A large hand clawed across the space behind the couch, managing to grab a handful of cloak and pull it to the side. Harry felt a moment of embarrassment that his eyes were watering with pain. He hoped it didn't look like he'd been really crying.

"Get up," Severus hissed from between clenched teeth. His eyes snapped with barely controlled fury. Harry struggled to sit without dropping his wand or using his damaged hand. He decided he had best pretend to have broken into his professor's room.

"Sorry ... sir." The words came out in broken gasps. He couldn't seem to control the flow of his breath.

"Get up!"

Severus seized his collar, knocking the injured hand into the wall. Without the terror of discovery to stiffen his will, Harry finally screamed. He thrashed back from the pain, dropping his wand. Severus stared at him. Harry managed a shaky breath.

"Hurts."

"Whatever I stepped on, I expect," noted a distant voice. Harry looked past his father's face to see Draco regarding him with cool evaluation.

Severus leaned forward and unclasped the invisibility cloak. The slick fabric slithered from Harry's shoulders. His father reached forward and deftly unfolded the fingers of Harry's good hand from the swollen one beneath. Harry hissed when he touched it.

"Well, well, Mr. Potter." He raised a challenging eyebrow. "Multiple broken bones, I expect. Obvious contusion and swelling. You'll need Pomfrey for that one." Harry had no more than nodded when Severus pointed his wand at the wounded hand. "Immobilis!" Severus looked almost amused. "But not yet. Can you speak, Potter?"

Harry considered the absurdity of saying "No." He swallowed. "Try," he answered jerkily.

Severus looked disgusted. "Very well. Torpeo."

The hand went numb. Harry sighed in relief. He took several deep breaths. "Sorry, sir. I was only looking at the books."

"Sneaking into the Restricted Section of the library is no longer sufficient, Potter?"

That was wrong, Harry thought. He covered his confusion by bending to pick up his wand. He should have screamed about me being in his rooms.

Severus held a hand out to Draco. "Let me see it," he snapped.

"It's just some --"

"Now, Mr. Malfoy!"

Draco, with an enigmatic look at Harry, placed the book in the waiting hand of his head of house. Severus glanced down at it and flinched.

"Harry!"

"I hadn't even opened it!" Harry protested, before the thought registered that Severus's outrage was entirely wrong. "I was just looking at the cover!"

Severus straightened and glowered at him. Somehow, he managed to convey the impression of looking down, though Harry doubted he was more than a few inches taller. He seized Harry by the arm, his fingers digging hard into skin and muscle, and dragged him over to the wall behind the armchair. He yanked open the door to his bedroom, and gave Harry a little shove. "In there. Now. I will deal with you after Mr. Malfoy has left."

Harry stared at him. Severus couldn't honestly expect him to wait in his most private room, could he? Without looking at anything?

Severus simply shut the door, letting the heavy oak push him back the last few inches. Harry heard the latch clack into place. Dark. He was enveloped in darkness. For a moment, all else was drowned out by the sounds of his own panic: a hammering heartbeat, shaky, quick breaths, then he started to pull himself under control. He was standing up, he was in a normal room, and all he had to do was to manage not to touch anything.

"Lumos."

Harry let out a shaky breath. He could do magic with his left hand; the room was no longer impenetrable blackness. Cautiously, he listened.

"What are you doing, sir?" asked Malfoy's clear voice.

"Warding the door. He will not be able to hear us, now."

Harry was about to protest when it occurred to him that Severus might intend him to hear the conversation -- but want Draco to think he had not. He finally let himself look behind him. To his relief, the room did not appear to be furnished out of Borgin and Burkes. Indeed, it was quite ordinary, if sparse. It was a bit larger than his own, with a canopied double bed, a dresser, and a wardrobe crowded at one end of it, leaving half the floor bare, but for a worn rug. Beyond that was a small tiled fireplace and another door. Harry kept himself from examining at the things on the dresser, but he was vaguely aware of knives, vials, and books. He wondered if there was anything under the large, worn rug, but told himself not to look. Instead, he pulled a small foot rug from beside the bed to before the door, and he settled down to listen.

Severus was fuming -- and also afraid. He had sounded out Draco on several occasions since Harry began to regard the boy's loyalties as uncertain, and Draco had always responded with barely-prompted declarations of devotion to the Dark Lord and his cause. That might mean only that he believed this was what Severus wanted to hear, but Severus could not be certain. Confronted with his association with Harry, and with anti-Voldemort elements in Slytherin House, Draco hinted at cunning plans that would turn to the advantage of his father's master. Severus had no idea which interpretation to believe.

He thought it likely that Draco did resent the Dark Lord's treatment of his father. The highest purpose of the Dark Lord, in Malfoy's eyes, had not been to suppress mudbloods, but to ensure that the right sort of purebloods were held above the law. Draco must have absorbed that lesson at his father's knee.

The subject of his musings crossed his arms over his thin chest.

"Tell me," he said, in a voice thick with sarcasm, "how did Harry get in? Are you so incompetent at guarding your rooms?"

Severus made a decision. He would assume Draco distrusted the Dark Lord, but still expected pureblood privilege. That was probably safe.

"Harry is a most ... enthusiastic student," he said slyly. He prepared for the thrust. "I have given him my password."

"How ... unusual."

Severus studied him. He could claim Harry as some sort of toy kept for sex and torment, and Draco might believe him -- or might not. Severus suspected the two boys knew each other better than they thought, and he had been Draco's Head of House for five years, now. The boy might find the roles too implausible to credit. He had better, he decided, make more liberal use of the truth than that.

"Draco..." Severus sighed and gestured the boy to a seat. "I had hoped to avoid this, but the time has come to be frank with you."

"You are betraying our lord?" Draco suggested coldly. He ignored the offer.

"The Dark Lord was once a magnificent leader and a cunning politician," Severus answered. "However, there is a reason striving for immortality is ill-regarded. Surely you have noticed, Draco, that our illustrious leader is ... quite mad."

Draco looked thoughtful. "I had begun to consider the possibility, sir. I had still hoped, though, that perhaps I was, in my inexperience --" the words dripped with sarcasm in Draco's aristocratic drawl -- "missing some finer points of strategy."

Severus let his lip curl in a sneer. That, at least, was heartfelt, and Draco's response encouraging. Had the boy been waiting for a sign that it was safe to express doubt? On the other hand, perhaps he was just fishing for incriminating details to bring to the Dark Lord. "Your father had strategy. Voldemort had strategy in my youth. Now, however...." he let the words trail off, to allow Draco to complete the statement as he saw fit. Draco ignored the opening.

"I am curious, sir," he prodded with superficial politeness, "as to how these reservations lead to allowing Harry access to your private rooms."

Severus smirked. "Very few people have the capacity to effectively challenge our lord."

Draco's eyes narrowed in the following silence. "And Harry Potter is one?" he guessed.

"Yes."

"And what does that gain us?"

Severus went to the sideboard and poured himself a glass of wine. He had the distant thought that it was early afternoon, but he knew he needed to occupy his hands, or they could betray his anxiety. The stemmed glass, like a quill or knife, gave him something to twirl and stroke while he improvised his supposed plot.

"Freedom from a capricious master," he said, slowly lifting the goblet into his line of sight, "and -- if we play the pieces to our advantage -- young Harry in power."

"Harry would be useless with power."

"Harry would indeed be quite lost." The wine, black in the shadow, grew to a deep and powerful red when he held it before a flame. "However, he sees me as his mentor, you as his friend." He focused past the glass, directly on the Malfoy boy. "When he is lost, who will he turn to?"

"I'm not certain he will be lost, Professor Snape. Harry has strong beliefs."

"Harry has strong expressions of beliefs, but the beliefs, in themselves, are easily changed," Severus shot back. He remembered that Harry was listening, and hoped Harry had the sense to understand what he was doing, rather than thinking that he believed this. "He has been persecuted by Muggles. Unfortunately, our lord chose to mirror this treatment, alienating him equally from our cause. Still, he remains balanced, with no trust of either side. A bit of favorable treatment from well-placed wizards should convince him we are preferable to the alternative."

Draco looked contemptuous. "He won't abandon Granger. Don't expect it. He's invited her to the Halloween Ball, don't you know?"

With a shrug, Severus dismissed the matter. "Youthful indiscretions. I did as much, at his age, for a pretty girl."

Disowning Lily tore at his soul as it had not in years, and his dismay was edged with panic at the thought of their son listening. He wondered if it was easier or harder for Harry to hear than for him to say. Why did I allow Harry to listen to this conversation?

"So you think he'll outgrow her?"

Because he will need to know everything I said. Severus held the boy's gaze. "Of course," he replied. He tried to push back the thought of his captive audience. "She's only a Mudblood, after all." And I am a liar, a killer, a traitor -- but he knows that, all of it. Lily, dear ghost, does he know that I loved you?

Draco's stare was without expression -- a mirror, perhaps to his own. Severus had no idea if he had impressed the boy or if his worth to the Dark Lord was currently being calculated and spent. Draco, with a touch of his father's elegant grace, finally settled himself on the couch, still skewed from the wall.

"So," he pressed, "we return to my original question. Why does he have access to your rooms?"

Severus sat also, in the chair beside the couch. He could not help noting that he had sat this way many times in the past few months, with Harry in Draco's place. He leaned forward. "For the library."

"What?" Draco's brow furrowed. His eyes flickered to the book, still out on the table. The title and trap gleamed in the dim light.

"He'll never defeat the Dark Lord with what little the headmaster would have him learn. Also, the practice of certain Dark Arts will alleviate some of his more ... difficult traits."

Draco's eyebrows rose in cool interest. "Did you assign him ... that book?"

"No." Severus smiled coldly and raised the glass to his lips. "But his instincts are flawless." He took a sip of the dark wine and it burst into flavors -- fruit and wood and tannin and smoke blessing his tongue in a sudden perfect mosaic of taste. Fear, he thought. Each taste, as each action, is distinct. He fixed Draco with an intense stare.

"You are probably even now evaluating the worth of betraying me. Certainly, in your position, I would be." That pulled a wry smile from Draco. Severus did not return it. "Before you make your decision, I ask that you observe for a few weeks. Consider his strategies. Consider if this is a lord worth following, in these times."

Draco nodded. "Certainly, sir. Perhaps we could discuss the matter in a week or two?"

When you've decided on your demands, Severus thought, but he merely nodded politely. The thought of Draco Malfoy blackmailing him was irritating, but also reassuring. That gave him control, at a price. "Certainly."

Draco was not inclined to linger. As soon as he had departed, Severus checked the door for interference, and when his wards proved secure, called Harry out.

"What did you think you were DOING?" The reproof started with controlled menace, but somehow degenerated to a shriek of fury. Severus was at once horrified and pleased by how harshly the words left him, by Harry's flinch and the mortification in his pale face.

"No one was here. I thought I'd wait in my room."

"No one was here," Severus repeated mockingly. "And how did you know?"

"It was dark."

Severus repressed simultaneous impulses to laugh and to shove the boy into the wall.

"Nevertheless, I might have had company." When a bloom of red on Harry's cheeks informed him that the boy had understood the most obvious interpretation of that, he added: "And there are certain curses that must be cast in total darkness. An advantage to a dungeon room."

Harry shivered. "Could we modify the portkey?"

"I'm tempted to take the portkey from you."

"I walked down, today. If it went straight to my room, I could appear there whether you had company or not. If my room was shielded to allow sound in, but not out, I could safely wait there."

"And spy on me at will, I suppose!" Even as the words burst out, Severus reconsidered. The idea was sound, if he spent some time working out a few details.

"Tell me what you're here for. Convince me this is not frivolous."

Harry shivered. He had hoped to not make too much of the problem that had brought him here, but here he was, needing it to seem as important as possible. He decided to emphasize Forest, rather than Remus.

"That Wolven Freedom Union woman -- the one who visited Remus, who you said was part of the delegation to the Dark Lord? She was in Hogsmeade, yesterday. I saw her. I tried to talk to you after the meeting, this morning--"

His father's grim glower had not lightened.

"With Lupin?" he suggested bitingly.

Harry bit his lip. "Not in secret. They were at the Three Broomsticks, drinking together." He took a deep breath. "I think they have some sort of emotional involvement."

Severus looked contemptuous. "Lupin seems a bit old to expand his romantic interests to women."

Harry had thought about this matter quite a bit the night before. Despite the trouble it had given him, he found Severus's similar assumption annoying.

"There's more to things than sex, you know!" he snapped. "Remus looked upset the woman was displeased with him, but I expect I look as bad at any frown from Ron, and I can't imagine having any interest in him that way! But he's my friend, and his opinion matters to me, and it hurts to have him upset. And Remus looked hurt when this woman glared at him, and they'd been--" Harry didn't know how to describe the intimate joy he had first seen between the two. "She's not just some werewolf he happens to know. She matters to him."

He found he was leaning against the wall, arms wrapped around himself, shaking with having said so much and knowing so little, at Ron's abandonment of him and the anguish on Remus's face....

"Tell me you didn't stay and watch."

"I didn't. But it took a while to get back to the door unseen, and I could see them again from there."

Severus reached out hesitantly. Stained fingertips brushed across Harry's shoulder, gripped momentarily, and fell away. "Thank you for telling me -- but we do need a better system. If it had been Avery...." He made a slight wry sound. "Do you think I will survive Draco?"

"I hope so. You're in a better position to keep an eye on him than I am."

"I can monitor the Slytherin fireplaces and a few less obvious means of communication -- but I cannot prevent him from walking up to the owlery."

"I'll watch him too, then. Should I pretend that you are tutoring me in Dark Arts? That was part of it, right?"

"Yes, but remember, you did not hear that." Severus smiled slightly. "And I didn't tell you. If he asks you, deny it. It's what you should do in such a situation, and you will be much more believable in nervous denial than trying to play a part that Malfoy knows better than you do."

"So the story is that you are trying establish me as a sort of protégé before I kill the Dark Lord. Why am I going along with this?"

Severus shrugged. "Perhaps you should decide that. Why might you study Dark Arts under me?"

Harry shrugged. "To kill him, of course. I do need to win."

An oddly strained expression tightened Severus's features. "Ah, of course. My little Slytherin-in-hiding." His mouth twisted into a harsh smile. "Which I should remember when you promise to behave."

"Look, it's just--"

"That what you want is more important than anything else?"

"I don't know! Maybe that some clothes and manners don't mean you have too much control over me--" Harry stopped, startled by his own words. "I mean, I'm not being too much a proper young wizard...."

Severus choked. "I shouldn't worry about that!"

"But my friends do. I mean, Fred and George and Ron all gave me a hard time about buying clothes, and I bought far more than I would have otherwise, just to irritate the twins."

"You did not accept fashion advice from them, I hope?"

"As far as I can tell, their tastes are hopelessly gaudy."

"Correct."

"I bought one thing that they suggested, but it's just a waistcoat, so I can wear it with darker things. Other than that, I chose for myself, and it was mostly fairly conservative, I think. A few shirts. A cape, which is odd for me, but seems common--"

"What length?"

"Mid-calf."

"Respectable, especially for a young man. Dark or light?"

"Dark burgundy."

"Good. Anything else?"

"The one odd thing was some trousers, fitted at the hips and ankles. They fit in my boots perfectly, and matched the cape. I've seen those now and then, I think."

Severus lifted his eyebrows. "They sound quite fashionable."

"Fashionable, how?" Harry asked suspiciously.

Severus laughed. "Not too outré, if that is what you're asking. A bit modern. For a first date at an expensive, but not conservative, restaurant, perhaps. They probably suit your politics and nominal lineage, if not your actual upbringing, admirably. Did the Weasleys choke?"

Harry laughed. "Stared, more like."

"Well, you'll need to wear it down here, some time, so I can tell you if it's the sort of thing I'm picturing, or if you just look ridiculous."

Harry watched Severus pick up a nearly full goblet of red wine from the side table, stare at it for a moment, and put it down again. I wonder if he actually wanted that, or just poured it out of habit when starting a conference? For that matter, why was Draco here? Do the Slytherins usually come here, or is it just Draco? Harry was surprised to realize that he felt a bit ... not jealous, he decided. Territorial.

"I need to make the skin for your mask."

"Can I come with you? You can ward the lab for sound."

Severus glanced at Harry's hand. After it had been numbed, Harry had settled it against his side, but he had otherwise forgotten about it.

"For an hour. Then you need to go see Madam Pomfrey. Injuries are easier to heal in the first few hours."

Harry nodded. "All right."

With Harry under his invisibility cloak, they walked to the lab. Snape warded the door before allowing Harry to remove the cloak. Harry thought the unpleasant repercussions were done with, but preparing potions ingredients seemed to free some part of Severus's mind. While the Potions Master was metering mercury into a thin graduated cylinder, he started the interrogation.

"Do tell me you were not about to start that book."

Harry shifted uneasily. "I hadn't decided."

"Hadn't decided."

Harry thought that if he sounded that angry, his measurements would be off, but his father seemed able to push the disturbance into precision.

"I hadn't opened it, but if it tells how to trap souls -- or, better yet, destroy them -- it could be just what we need."

Severus finished with the mercury, and began to slice some purple, squishy thing with unnecessary vehemence. "Don't be an idiot!"

"I'm being practical."

His father actually looked up. "And what do you think the price for that would be? Do you think I want to try to kill you, next?" A snarl faded from his face as he shook his head. "I couldn't do it."

"You'd kill me for that?" Harry felt abandoned -- and confused.

Severus laid the knife aside and wiped his hands on a clean white towel, leaving it streaked with maroon slime. He turned to face Harry.

"If you take the Dark Lord down in that manner," he said crisply, "you will be the next Dark Lord. Don't persuade yourself otherwise."

Harry opened his mouth to protest, then closed it again.

"Consider some of the things that I have permitted you to read, then take me seriously when I tell you that you may not touch that book."

Harry nodded. His father continued to watch him. "Yes, sir," he said belatedly.

Severus returned to his counter. He set the oozing purple slices aside, and tipped a container of round, red things into a mortar. "I should kill him -- the Dark Lord, I mean, not Draco."

"You can't!"

"I can try." Severus dragged the pestle hard against the mortar's grooved sides. The red things let out a sweet, unpleasant smell. Harry sniffed at it several times, trying to identify why it repulsed him, before recalling the similar smell of the remains of a half-eaten mouse, left decaying on his Aunt's sun-warmed patio by a neighbor's cat. He wondered if decaying people smelled like that. He thought about killing Voldemort. Severus couldn't kill Voldemort, he was certain. Harry was the one who could.

"The prophesy says I kill him or he kills me," Harry said, out loud. He had a sudden thought. "So you can only kill him if he has already killed me, right?" Severus looked at him in surprise, but Harry pressed on. "So if you try to kill him, either you'll fail, or you'll succeed and know that I am dead."

For a moment, Harry thought that Severus would hurl the mortar and its contents across the room, but Severus's care to his potions was an even stronger force than his temper. He set the mortar and pestle down and backed a step away from them.

"I need to do something," he insisted. He sounded unreasoning, feverish. "Something that matters."

"You can't atone for killing people by killing people!"

Severus snapped his head around to glare at him. "So what are you atoning for?"

Harry slumped down on his stool. "Living," he said.

Severus sneered. "More difficult than it ought to be, isn't it?"

Harry nodded. His father sighed.

"Keep this clear, Harry," he said carefully. "I want Draco to believe I am teaching you Dark Arts. I have no intention of actually doing so -- certainly not that sort. Perhaps a few traps or alarm spells, or some scrying, if you have a specific need for it, but not how to destroy someone's soul."

"I understand."

Severus returned to the mortar and pestle, and the sickening smell returned. Harry tried to think of some way to change the subject.

"Draco protected me, yesterday," he said finally.

"Protected you?"

"Goyle found me after the twins' prank. I was helpless. Goyle tried to go for me, but Draco stopped him." Harry pushed up his glasses, then, in irritation, took them off and rubbed behind his ears. He wondered if he was outgrowing the frames.

"To keep him out of trouble, no doubt."

"No one was in sight. Well, no one except the Barrett girl, with them." Harry hesitated. "He might not betray me."

"Hope for loyalty, if you wish. I will settle for dragging out the extortion phase until November."

"Will you be safe going to the hearing if Lord Tom knows?"

Severus let out a bark of laughter. "Safe, I suppose, but it's the one thing that might be enough for me to lose."

"What?"

"Imagine, Harry, if the Mark starts burning during the hearing. The Dark Lord, with care, can make it agonizing. It's one thing for them to know I was a Death Eater, and quite another for them to see me writhing on the floor, or, at best, unable to speak for pain. They could find me incompetent."

Harry nodded. "If you tried to kill him, that would kind of give it away, don't you think?"

Severus whipped his head up to stare.

"Promise?" Harry asked.

Severus snorted. "A Slytherin promise or a Gryffindor promise?"

"Honestly, I think I want a Hufflepuff promise."

Severus laughed.

"Go and see Madam Pomfrey. I will see you on Tuesday evening, after dinner, in my rooms. I promise that."