Smoke and Mirrors by JewelBurns
Summary: Sequel to The Choices We Made.

With Voldemort dead and Harry's cancer settling life should be returning to normal for Harry and Snape but things aren't always as they seem. Instead they find themselves challenged in new ways. When dangerous events start after Harry's return to Hogwarts can Snape figure out what's going on before they're torn apart again? HPSS mentor Healing/Coping
Categories: Parental Snape > Guardian Snape Main Characters: .Snape and Harry (required), Draco, Dudley, Hermione, Original Character
Snape Flavour: Snape Comforts, Snape is Depressed, Snape is Desperate, Snape is Kind, Snape is Loving, Out of Character Snape, Overly-protective Snape, Snape is Secretive
Genres: Angst, Drama, Family, General, Hurt/Comfort, Mystery
Media Type: None
Tags: Adoption, Alternate Universe, Azkaban Character, Hospitalization, Injured!Harry
Takes Place: 7th summer, 7th Year
Warnings: Alcohol Use, Character Death, Out of Character, Romance/Het
Challenges: None
Series: Choices We Made Universe
Chapters: 84 Completed: No Word count: 697412 Read: 514929 Published: 15 Nov 2020 Updated: 30 Sep 2023
Malfoys' Interlude: Draco's Secret by JewelBurns
Author's Notes:
This Malfoys' Interlude is from Draco's POV.

Tuesday 22nd July, 1997

There wasn't much that could overpower a potent sleeping drought and bring on a premature wakefulness, but the sensation of being watched was certainly one of them.

Turning to his back as he dragged the exquisite silk and modal bed linens with him, Draco let loose a light groan of protest at being woken up. Sleep shared in his reluctance to leave, coating his eyes in its dust and lingering on his mind's periphery in case he decided to roll over and go back to sleep. The potions were always the same in the morning; it made it difficult for the teen to rouse, his alertness stunted, and an odd taste of cotton clung to his tongue.

Staring up at the intricate braided moulding cascading up the walls, to the angles of the room, and finally the vaulted ceiling of his bedroom, Draco continued to feel the set of eyes on him. If it were months ago, he would've immediately reached for his wand haphazardly tossed on the bedside table to throw a hex or three in the vicinity he thought his intruder was. But he lacked the willpower to do much of anything. It wasn't that he was welcoming injury or death.

But he wasn't unwelcoming it, either.

The moulding in the room was renowned. It was a masterful art piece in and of itself, hand carved pieces brought in from the enchanted Black Forests in Germany. The woods there were cursed from the omnipresent dark magic constantly circling the mountain range, the local witches and wizards clinging to their destructive habits as much as a fish clung to water or a bird strived for air. The trees, in return, had soaked up the malevolent energy over the centuries, their trunks and bark swelling to unnatural angles and girth. Living forests, they called it, but that was an ambivalent moniker in creation. To live would mean to prosper and strive for life; all the trees knew was a hopeless, evil magic that sucked vitality out and spit hatred back.

Maybe it was fitting that Draco's parents had selected the room they had for him when he was a child. The entire bedroom was outfitted in the living wood, the moulding carved into plaits and braids and stacked to create awe inspiring pieces. There were no knots in the wood, though. The magic was timeless and had mutated the trees to abandon their capability to count their own age. They were true slaves to the nefarious forces that fed them.

Figuring that if the intruder was going to do him harm, he would've already done it, Draco shoved himself up to a wobbly elbow and looked around the sizable bedroom.

The floor was a dark, espresso wood that was partially covered by oriental rugs. A large four-poster bed with silver and taupe linens, modestly patterned, matched the dark green velvet drapes hanging around it like a veil. In what he assumed was the safety and privacy of his own space, Draco always slept with the drapes open, much different from how he favored them closed when in the dorms at Hogwarts. Looking around the space that had been his for thirteen years - the bedroom he was moved to when old enough to live more independently - it didn't take the teen very long to find his intruder. Then again, the man put zero effort forward in trying to remain hidden as he sat in the small sitting area tucked closest to the enormous windows.

Draco pawed at the sleep on his face, not sure yet if he was more annoyed or curious about the man's presence. "Can't remember the last time you were in here," he mumbled.

Gracefully pushing himself off the wingback chaise, Lucius hummed a little as he glanced around the chamber, as though seeing it for the first time. "You always liked this room as a child. Said it felt like you were in a forest."

"I remember." But as a child, Draco didn't know at the time that the forest the trees were imported from was filled with evil deeds and darkness. The room itself was a dark artefact. Looking his father up and down, taking in his immaculately groomed hair and regal robes, the man was clearly dressed for the day and not looking like he was pressed to explain his presence. "Either you're here with some kind of urgent news or you're trying for a new angle to get something. Unless mother has died or taken ill, I don't know why you'd come in here at all. And you definitely don't seem the least bit worried."

The older wizard stopped beside his desk. The surface was clean. Draco knew never to leave papers out, lest prying eyes and sticky fingers found their way near them. "Your mother has asked me to assess your room for renovations."

The teen crossed his arms but made no move to rise from the bed. "And you couldn't wait for me to get up?"

Lucius chuckled. "It's a half past ten in the morning, Draco. The day is nearly half over and you're still asleep. I didn't have the time to wait for you to wake up." Which was a lie considering the older wizard was clearly sitting in a chair moments ago. But Draco didn't point that out - it didn't have to be, they both already knew it. And they both knew exactly what his father was getting at with his accusing tone.

"Yeah, well, I didn't sleep great last night." The lie was half-hearted at best and even Draco didn't believe it. Was that all the father and son could do in conversations? Spit lies back and forth in a battle of endless wit and see which one buckled first? "Why couldn't mother just ask me about the renovations? It's my room, anyways. If anyone should have a say, it ought to be me."

His father glanced briefly back at him, his silver eyes brightened with something; pain, pity, hurt? The emotions were naked and not normally found on the Malfoy patriarch, and so the teen didn't know how to register them. But they were the only response he'd get. Once again, the two wizards existed in the unspoken as they danced around the true answer.

His mother didn't ask him because she didn't want to talk to him. At least not about anything of import or having anything to do with what happened months ago. Sometimes, it bothered Draco that she chose to ignore him in a sense, but other times, he found it liberating. His father hadn't been there at four in the morning when he was weak, shivering, and drained of blood. It was his mother who was there each and every night changing out his clothing, tucking him into bed, ensuring both boys - him and Harry - were as comfortable and safe as she could promise given the circumstances. It was her that remained at his bedside and rearranged his blonde strands just to show that she was still there for him.

She was coping in her own way. And her way was destroying and recreating as much as she possibly could. It was less painful to build new memories on the graves of the dead than around the walls of the half living.

Lucius nodded up at the dark moulding. "The wood will be removed. It's far too dark for the palette your mother is trying to introduce in the manor." He wasn't referencing colours. "While the renovations go on, you won't be able to stay here. Instead of moving you to a different room, I was thinking perhaps we could go on holiday for a few weeks. At least before you start Hogwarts again."

If. Draco wanted to counter with. If I go back to Hogwarts. But he knew it was a losing battle. His father had met with Snape the previous day for tea, during which he made himself scarce and holed himself in his room to avoid any accidental run-ins with the professor. That was an engagement he could absolutely do without. But if his father met with Snape, he undoubtedly was trying to hold up his end of the bargain to ensure safe accommodations for him during his last school year.

"Our problems would be here when we got back," the teen mumbled as he ran his fingers through his hair, working through a knot and forcing some kind of order to the strands. It wasn't difficult; like many of his features, he inherited his father's delicate hair.

"They would, yes," his father agreed lightly. "But getting away for a short time might do everyone some good. I was thinking we could visit the chateau in Reims. It's been sometime since we've seen it and you've always enjoyed the French countryside."

That was true. Draco did have a penchant for the freeing bliss of the vineyards and fertile hills. Their chateau there was old - newer in construction compared to the manor but the land was more ancestral than their estate in Wiltshire. It was where his ancestor, Armand Malfoy, migrated from during the Norman invasion and established the Malfoy legacy on British soil. Their Reims chateau had seen revitalization in the seventeenth century by the celebrated wizarding architect, Louis Le Vau. While the Muggles knew him for his beautiful work on the Versailles Palace, they didn't know about his majestic creations in the Wizarding World including the Malfoy Chateau and several Beauxbaton wings.

However, leaving before the next full moon, due in a little less than a fortnight, might disrupt the exhausting ritual Draco was in the middle of completing. But his parents weren't aware of his time constraints - he didn't want his parents knowing that he was in the midst of attempting to perfect the Animagus ritual in the off chance that it didn't work or that his animal was a disgrace to their name - and he wasn't keen on showing his hand just yet. So he had to play it safe.

After holding the mandrake leaf for so long in his mouth, he barely noticed it tucked under his tongue.

"Can we go a few weeks into August?" Draco asked as he threw the blankets back and swung his legs over the side of the bed, barefeet meeting the heated floor. "I've got a… a few things I need to take care of here."

"Oh?"

Lucius was never the prying type unless it fit his narrative and goal. At least, the old Lucius was like that. The old Lucius also never waltzed into his room, uninvited and unannounced, under flimsy pretenses. "I was thinking more on what Dr Cobb said the other day about Hermione. And I… I think it's about time I speak with her. Assuming she even wants to talk with me."

The older wizard turned away from the desk to look more fully at the teen sitting perched on the edge of the bed. They were both unfamiliar with the strangeness of casual conversation. And really, the last time they were able to speak in earnest without Voldemort's darkness hanging over their shoulders was years ago. Before Lucius was tossed into Azkaban. Even during his fifth year, Draco remembered how distracted his father was, and felt the reverberating shift the Dark Lord's ascension did to their relationship.

Now without the background noise, they were left to figure out how to be parent and child.

The boy's candidness took Lucius by brief surprise. But he was quick to capitalize on what he hoped was a sudden inspiration of openness. "You'll never know until you try. Do you know what you'll say to her?"

They never talked about his relationship with a Muggleborn, and Draco was forced to navigate his father's feelings about Hermione in the dark. Was his father still intoxicated on the Pureblood ideals? Did he frown on the relationship and hope Draco would return to the path his parents wanted for him? Did they see it as a temporary fling? Did they hate her for being the one weakness that forced Draco into a position of kidnapping Harry?

He shook his head at the question. "Not really. I have a lot that I want to say but I don't know how to say it. And I don't think she'll want to- what are you looking at?" He furrowed his brows and followed his father's downward-angled gaze. "Are you looking at my feet?"

"Hm? Pardon?" A brief panicked look crossed his father's face before he tucked it back in. "Of course not. I was simply in thought."

The entire morning was strange. "Right well… I need to shower and get to Stonehenge for my appointment. I… erm… please tell mother that the renovations are fine and I'd be happy to spend a week or two at the chateau so long as we go in the middle of August."

His father was chagrined and awkward as he quickly excused himself from the bedroom and left behind a confused Draco. Everything had seemed oddly comfortable between the two of them despite his father's invasion of privacy and waiting for him in the sitting area. That's what the elder Malfoy was doing; he wasn't inspecting his room to determine renovations. He was waiting for his son to wake up.

But even the sheer awkwardness of that didn't unsettle Draco as much as it probably should've. While he wasn't exactly happy about the invasion, he also never once demanded his father vacate his room. And the elder Malfoy didn't appear too bothered by the rare spot of intimate conversation they stumbled on. No, he'd gotten awkward at the end, when Hermione was brought up and he found his father in deep thought staring at the floor.

And so Draco assumed that, despite being forced to reconsider their wrong Pureblood ideals, his father continued to harbor hesitations about Muggleborns. Never did it cross his mind that his father was genuinely studying his feet.


Stonehenge was an interesting place.

It butted against the southern farms technically on Malfoy property, and so his parents presumptuously claimed to own a stake at the acclaimed landmark. In actuality, no one owned it. Muggle Britain liked to believe that since it rested within their borders, it was a national monument they could bleed for tourism profit. But among the wizarding world - not just Britain but the entire world - Stonehenge answered to no one. And it belonged to no one. No one had the power to claim that strong of a magical signature.

When he was a boy, Draco's flying lessons were allowed only within his family's lands for safety sake and to make sure he abided by the ministry's rulings. From the southern property, he was able to see the legendary stones and the hoard of people crowding around it, making out the hundreds of people balking at the archaic formation.

Most were Muggles. Wizards and witches that traveled came by apparition and were afforded their own entrance tucked in a hollowed out gully that rested, serendipitously, on the northern crust just where the Malfoy property line began. The gully was deep and ravenous with vines, obscuring wildflowers and fragrant fennel, and a field of four-leaf clovers that attracted leprechauns during their autumn mating migrations. Though typically jovial with a mischievous streak, the magical creatures - or 'beings', according to the protesters lobbying for more liberal sentient definitions - tended to be fierce and possessive when searching for their ideal mates. Which made the gully in the fall, at times, a magical battleground with pissed off leprechauns defending their turf as they searched for the best four-leaf clover to present to their prospective mates.

For old time sake, Draco considered taking his broom but couldn't muster the interest enough to carry the plan out. Flying was a fun pastime, but he stopped really caring about the sport when his mind became preoccupied with other training lessons. Like how to be a spy for the Order and not wind up killed. Which he botched up fantastically. Still, he left his broom in his wardrobe along with the army of couture robes and suits he still couldn't bring himself to wear. They reminded him of his life before. When he knew exactly what was expected of him, what it meant to be a Malfoy, what his ideals were. Now he didn't know, and to wear those clothes felt like he was trying to masquerade as something he wasn't.

He kept wearing the Muggle jeans, flannel long-sleeved top over a plain cotton t-shirt, and trainers that, strangely enough, had the name of its creator patched on the side of it and were commonly called 'Chucks'. Bizarre that Muggles would actually want to display the name of the creator on a shoe. Why would you want to ruin the shoe with a label that couldn't be taken off?

After the tossing of his stomach had settled following the apparition, Draco hadn't lingered long in the gully. Two wizarding families had arrived separately with impatient, summer-crazed children in tow and a pair of tired parents just looking to get their offspring out of the home. Draco had ignored them, stuffed his hands into his jean trousers, and shuffled along the valleyed gorge.

After feeling the anti-muggle wards sizzle around him, letting him know he was nakedly exposed and in an area shared for both kinds of people, Draco had begun to look for Dr Cobb. Stonehenge was always busy in the summer when Muggle and Wizarding children were between terms and parents chose to take holiday then. Stonehenge's landscape was surrounded by a sea of cascading farms and vibrant green hills with the occasional rural home and renovated castle turret marking the horizon. But civilization had given the landmark a wide, great berth. And yet, people were drawn to Stonehenge.

Dr Cobb found Draco first. He flagged him down with a happy wave and holler, which the teen returned with a much more reserved tilt of his head and didn't bother to take his hands out of his pockets, and guided them to a small grassy slope a short distance away from the ancient stones jutting out from the soil.

Now sitting beside the psychologist, neither caring about the grass stains on their jeans, Draco stared forward at the landmark. He'd gotten through the basal pleasantries: 'How are you feeling today, Draco?' was met with the standard, 'Fine'. And then the silence collapsed on them. It was the same silence that joined in on every session as the doctor simply waited for the young wizard to speak his mind, never rushing him. He'd poke and prod every so often, and showed no impatience when the Malfoy heir clammed up and told the Squib all he felt was numbness.

"Why do Muggles come here?"

Dr Cobb looked surprised at the question at first but glanced back out at the enormous, weathered stones. A cool breeze carried by them, making the grasses sway and shift. "To appreciate the history and the feat people long ago managed to do. We like to gawk at the unknown. It's the same reason people debate whether the afterlife is real or not, and don't get into debates about if grass is green or red. Mystery is the spice of life."

Draco tilted his head to the side as he considered the answer. It wasn't right, though. He didn't believe it. "People - Muggles - travel from across seas… America, Asia, Australia, India… all for rocks that they can see in a book. None of their technology is here. Why come?" He paused for a second before turning towards the doctor to read his reaction. "Do you feel a pull to it?"

"You mean in the same way you're drawn to it?"

The young wizard nodded slowly. "We come here because of the magic. It's old, raw, and chaotic, but strong enough that the signature hasn't faded. It's like.. It feels like a potion that exploded. The same kind of magic left in the air that… that tingles. That's what this feels like." He shrugged a little. "It's the same kind of ancient magic that the Egyptians used to build the pyramids, construct the Colossus of Rhodes, and create - and destroy during the Chimeran-Dragon Wars - the Gardens of Babylon."

Cobb seemed to know this already. "The Seven Wonders of the World. That's what the Muggles call them. Though only one is still standing."

"That you lot can see," Draco countered. "Half of those landmarks are still there. Just hidden from Muggles with some old, strong warding. But…" he looked back at the stone landmark, watching a child race down the trail with her cardigan flying behind her like a cape. "Why are Muggles drawn to them? You have no Magic. You shouldn't make these trips just to see old things. And yet you do."

"The mind doesn't have to be influenced by magic to appreciate wonders and craftsmanship, Draco."

"Perhaps not but it's different. There's thousands of old landmarks. Ceres tits, I can name a dozen off the top of my head that are older, more brilliant, and would give Muggles more to see than those seven 'wonders'. But Muggles still, still travel so far just to stare at a pile of rocks, empty sand, or a deserted beach. And for what? To try to imagine what used to be there?"

Cobb turned more fully to him now, eyeing him in equal parts curiosity and dubiousness and said nothing.

"We're drawn here for the old magic. We can sense it just like we can sense the old magic in those other locations," the teen continued softly, making sure they weren't overheard despite the distance between them and the crowd. "As a child, when I first saw how many muggles come here, I couldn't understand why. My parents said they were all deaf to magic. And then they told me about Squibs and Muggleborns, and how magic had the habit of being finicky in how it manifested and with who."

The American chuckled a little. "It's a shock for magical parents to have a squib. I can tell you from experience."

But Draco acted like he didn't hear him, continuing to look down at the blades of grass around him. "I had a theory as a kid that maybe magic just comes in different forms. We're such a small percent of the global population but maybe it's not magic that's the minority but just how we show it. Maybe Muggles are drawn here too because they can sense it. They just sense it in a different way. Like hair colour. We all have hair, but the colour changes depending on what we inherit."

Another breeze slendered by them as the doctor leaned back on his palms. "An interesting theory to have," he casually said. "What do you think that'd mean if it were true?"

"I dunno," the teen mumbled in a half-defeated voice and began ripping blades of grass to toss them forward. "Nothing, I suppose. It means nothing beyond only further showing we know rubbish about magical theory. My father yelled at me when I first brought it up, telling me that Muggles are inferior and therefore can't know anything about magic. That they're, by design, subservient to us."

"What do you believe?"

Draco shook his head and grabbed another handful of grass. "I don't-"

"-No. You have to know something. You can't just not have an opinion. What do you think? You. Draco Malfoy. I don't want to hear what your parents told you, what Hogwarts or Headmaster Father Time told you. I want to hear what you think."

The teen smirked a little at Dumbledore's nickname and tucked it away to use later. "I don't…" Know. He fought not to say it. Because he didn't know. The part he used to play as the perfect Pureblood son had decayed, failed to stand the test of time, and he didn't know what to think anymore. He was always told how to act, what to think, what was proper and what wasn't. But he was of age now, wasn't he? He was his own wizard and had proven himself more than capable of attempting to guide his family out of harm's way. He would've been successful had his father not intervened.

Muggles. What did he think about muggles?

Looking up from the growing pile of grass clippings in front of him, Draco watched a mother fight with the buttons on her young daughter's jumper while the father, completely oblivious to the struggle, took a violent amount of pictures with his camera of the stones.

"Muggles terrify me," the teen eventually began with no idea of where he was going. "I thought that Muggleborns wouldn't be strong in magic and would only weigh down my classes at Hogwarts, but I couldn't have been more wrong. The positively worst wizard in our class is a bloody Pureblood. Longbottom." He spit out the name and shook his head at the boy's disgrace. "And the best witch is a Muggleborn. For a while, I chalked it up to being a fluke. Or maybe they both would shift positions as we got older and our studies became more difficult. But it never happened. She got stronger and he, somehow, got even worse."

The father must've had over a dozen pictures of the unmoving stone from the same angle. If they had magical photographs, he wouldn't need to take a battery of stills to capture the moment. He stopped and popped open a small compartment on the bottom of the camera and proceeded to remove two small cylinder items to exchange with near identical ones stowed in a backpack. Draco watched the entire procedure curiously. Meanwhile, the little girl wailed and kicked her feet in displeasure of having her jumper fastened while the mother leveled her with exasperated words.

Was this a typical Muggle family outing? He wondered if Hermione had similar family moments.

As if reading him like a book, Cobb asked, "You started dating that smart, Muggleborn witch, so your thoughts must've changed. What terrifies you about Muggles?"

Draco ignored the question. "I'm going to see Hermione tomorrow. She doesn't know it, but I'm… I'm going to make the trip to her house in London. Apparition, obviously. I don't want to tell her in case I wanker out at the last moment and don't end up going. This way I won't disappoint her anymore than I already have."

"What makes you think you disappointed her?"

The teen laughed ruefully. "She's a Gryffindor! For every ounce of self-preservation they lack, they make up for it in bravery, which is also coincidentally called being a fatalist. Regardless, she'll think I'm some coward for not reaching out to her sooner. I couldn't even send my letters directly to her! They went to Potter first. She hasn't even replied to those."

"And are you? A coward, I mean?"

"What kind of fucking question is that?" Draco snapped, turning to look seethingly at the doctor only to find the American watching him calmly. "Of course I'm a coward! I can't even… here, let's go down the list of cowardly acts and failures I've made. Hold onto your pants because this will be quite the list." He lifted up his hands to count on his fingers. "I've failed at being a Pureblood son, a Death Eater, a spy for the Order - really, the fact that I failed both of those simultaneously is pathetically impressive - a Seeker for my Quidditch team, a friend to Potter, a boyfriend to Hermione, a patient to you, a student to my mentor." He dropped his hand down to slam it on the grass with each word. "Every. Single. Thing. I have tried to do, I've failed at. So you tell me, why would a Gryffindor, the 'brightest witch of her age', want to be with me?"

Cobb took the explosion in the same steady, tranquil stride he always had. Actually, he looked pleased with the teen's explosion. "So if you're such a shitty kid, why was she with you in the first place? She began dating you when she knew you were undercover, after you bullied her for years."

Draco almost fell over, surprised at the doctor's pointed audacity. His eyes widened a bit. "What?! I don't know! Maybe she had a lapse of judgment, just like I had a lapse of judgment thinking I deserved to be with her."

"The brightest witch of her age had a lapse of judgment? For seven or eight months?"

The wizard clamped his mouth shut and tightened his jaw for a moment. In his anger, he almost swallowed the mandrake leaf. It was quickly stuffed back under his tongue. "Things have changed. I'm washed up. I failed all of those things. Before the manor incident, I was a spy. Now I'm nothing. Why would she want to be with someone who runs away and dodges their girlfriend for months?"

The doctor grinned a little. "People aren't always looking to gain something from someone, Draco. That's your father's thinking. She might want to be with you just because you're you."

The teen frowned and hissed through his clenched teeth. "Me?! I don't even know who I am anymore!"

Cobb slapped him good-naturedly on his shoulder. "Then who better to learn it from than someone who genuinely wants to be with you for you? And look at it like this - you have a rare opportunity. You have a clean slate, Draco, the ability to re-write yourself how you want to."

Draco wasn't sure he could ever share in the American's enthusiasm on the topic. The ability to rewrite himself sounded freeing and liberating, but he was creating something from shattered pieces that had little resemblance to what they used to form. There were no blueprints to follow, no guidance beyond the mind doctor he barely knew, and he watched his parents flounder with similar struggles. What attributes did the powerful Malfoy family get to retain from their old lives and what would have to be rediscovered?

A clean slate? So what happened to the past seventeen years? To his childhood? Did he completely forget it and try to now emerge into adulthood with skeleton morals and values still in the building stages?

"I don't know what I'll say to her but-but I'm hoping it comes to me when I get there," Draco grumbled as he looked back up at the Muggle family, the father with his camera now trying to coordinate his fuming child into a pose in front of the stones. "I need her for the ritual, too. I have no one else to ask." A sad truth, he had no friends, allies, or acquaintances that'd help him.

"Have you told your parents you're trying to become an Animagus?"

The wizard shook his head. "Not yet. I don't want them to worry should I botch it up and end up half owl or something terrifying." It was partially the reason he hadn't told them. The real reason was the main purpose of his interest in going through the convoluted, grueling process in the first place. Since the trial and his involvement as a Death Eater and spy came to light, his reputation was sundered beyond recognition. No longer did he turn heads in Diagon Alley from jealous resentment, awe of his wealth, or a strange combination of the two. No longer did people mutter about the Malfoy's antiquitidated, proud pedigree and stare at them in wonder.

Now, instead of staring, they glared in brazen contempt.

Traveling to Diagon Alley was no longer a casual, easy trip. Once there, Draco was easily identified with his telltale, pale blonde hair and definitive Malfoy features, and became the spotlight to all sorts of unsavory attention. In part thanks to the media's spin on his trial and wording it that the aurors "coerced a confession" from him under veritaserum, he was a less than desirable wizard to the public. In reality, while he was given veritaserum when he explained his involvement with being a spy, orders as a Death Eater, and recounted everything that happened while captive at the manor, all marked Death Eaters were put under the truth serum. It wasn't that the Aurors "coerced" anything out of him; they followed strict protocol and he freely spoke of his experiences without complaint. He would've been forthcoming even without the veritaserum. There was nothing for him to hide, have it be his time as a spy or decision to take Harry to save Hermione.

But the media sliced and diluted the truth to fit what made a compelling story. Everyone became obsessed with the "Junior Death Eater" turned spy and his questionable actions in the course of the war. Despite sacrificing his life, despite his father being a key player in orchestrating their release that indirectly led to Voldemort's demise, despite all the good Draco did, journalists twisted the truth into gnarled, prickly vines that only left deeper wounds on the young Slytherin.

And considering he didn't see his reputation - or his family's - jumping back on the mend overnight, he decided to take things into his own hands. If his image caused such a ruckus in public, and likely put a damper on his safety, he decided shortly after the trial that he'd either have to keep a constant supply of polyjuice potion and some willing subject, or he'd need to make himself into something else on a whim.

Disillusionment had its location and interaction limitations. Polyjuice was a process to produce and had time constraints. No, he needed something that allowed him to be the catalyst, to decide when and where he'd take shape and when he was hidden.

Becoming an animagus was the most logical, ridiculous, and unexpected option he could pick.

"When do you plan on telling your parents?"

The question pulled Draco out of his thoughts and made him look back at the squib. "Dunno exactly. I don't like the idea of keeping it from them, once I know I did it right and my animal isn't something bloody wretched. With my luck, it'll be something useless like… a rabbit."

"Rabbits aren't all that bad. I'd hate to be something cliche like a cat."

The teen chuckled lightly. "I don't eat or normally sleep nearly enough to be a cat, thank Merlin. No, I'm hoping it'll be something interesting but useful, and able to mix in with crowds. Maybe a bird. But only a bit over a week to go and then this mandrake leaf can finally come out."

"Assuming you don't swallow it between now and then," Cobb taunted good-naturedly.

"If I swallow it, it's because you said that and you are absolutely fired if I do."

To be continued...
End Notes:
Coming Up Next: Stay Strong

Draco's animagus form has already been decided. No, it's not a ferret and it does have a very specific purpose to at least one of the upcoming plots.


This story archived at http://www.potionsandsnitches.org/fanfiction/viewstory.php?sid=3628