FORTY: a Proposal for Draco

He was rapidly disabused of that notion by Madam Pomfrey, who bustled in, pressed the back of her hand against his forehead and smiled cheerfully at him. “There you are, Mister Malfoy. I was beginning to wonder whether you were going to join us again.”

Draco sat up abruptly, groping for his left arm, where he felt the cotton of a soft bandage secured around the Dark Mark. He gazed at her wordlessly for a moment, taking in her warm smile, the strain at the edges of her eyes. “How long?” he inquired, and his voice croaked. The sound drew his hand up after it, pressing against the hollow of his throat.

“Well – let’s see.” The woman’s eyes went faraway. “Just a bit over twenty-four hours, now.”

He nodded, slowly; began to rise.

“Oh, no you don’t, dear,” she replied, pressing gently against the flat of his chest. “Not just now. Let’s get some food into you, first.”

“Not hungry,” he replied, and made to move again, only to find that his struggles were almost ineffectual. The plump woman was stronger than she looked.

Just then, his stomach growled, and he flushed bright pink.

“Not hungry?” she inquired brightly. “Hang on, I’ll get Severus and you can chat while you eat. I’m certain he’ll want to see you, and it’s near dinnertime, anyway.” The mediwitch Floo’d his Head of House and came to seat herself at the edge of his bed. “Well now, let’s have a look,” she said, removing her wand.

Draco closed his eyes as she murmured a simple diagnostic spell above him.

“You’re a bit anemic, did you know?”

“Since I was a baby,” Draco replied, without interest. “I don’t pass out or anything, so I never really paid it much attention.”

“What’s your sleeping schedule been like?”

“My sleeping doesn’t have a schedule.”

The quip didn’t appear to amuse her. “Mister Malfoy...” she intoned warningly.

“I mean it,” he said. “Sometimes I go up to the Astronomy Tower and draw, or listen to music. Sometimes I play cards. Sometimes I walk the grounds until I get bored.”

“Does sleep ever enter into this equation?” she inquired tartly.

He paused, unsure of what to say. “I don’t like the dreams I have,” he muttered, finally.

Madam Pomfrey blinked at him in surprise. “All right, then. We have a potion for that, you know. You could ask your Head of House for it.”

“It prevents dreams? All kinds?”

“All kinds,” she reassured him. “Now, before you have any food, I’m going to give you a bit of Nutritive Draught,” she informed him, bustling into and out of her little office. “Here you go, dear.”

Draco took the steaming cup, glanced into it dubiously and back up to her retreating figure. He drew his wand. “Aurelius inimicus,” he whispered. “Aurelius toxicum.”

Nothing. He gave the steaming cup one more dubious glance, then swallowed its contents.

Professor Snape then strode through the Hospital’s double doors and saw Draco sitting up and awake. Some strain lifted from his face and he gave the boy an awkward smile.

“Professor!” Draco tried hard not to show how relieved he was at the very sight of the Potions Master, but knew he was only partially successful. The knot coming undone at his middle made him realize how tightly he had been wound. The worst part of it all was that tears were pricking his eyes.

Snape perched on the edge of his bed and looked down at Draco, moving to grip Draco’s shoulder.

The Slytherin flinched away from the touch, but regretted his initial reaction when Snape’s eyes seemed to shutter and darken, and Snape’s hand moved away.

Draco felt worn as an old rag, worn and wrung out. “Sorry,” he muttered.

Snape shot him a brief glare, as if to demand to know what such an apology could possibly be for, but his expression softened when it caught on to Draco’s. “Talk,” he said, without preamble, and Draco smirked briefly as he realized that Snape was no good at extracting information. It was not amoung his talents...

“What shall we talk about?” Draco wondered, an odd dreaminess lacing through his tone. He realized suddenly that there had been Calming Draught in the potion he had swallowed, and that it was beginning to take effect. For all his perspicacity, he had not thought to check for potions slipped in ‘for his own good’...

“Do not be obtuse, Mister Malfoy,” Snape ordered. He reached out for Draco’s arm and plucked at the gauze.

Draco began to jerk away. “Hey – hey, don’t do that! It hurts!”

He was lying, but Snape looked him in the eye and used his other hand to pin Draco’s arm down at the wrist while his fingers continued to unwrap the gauze far more gently.

The other man’s expression of horror and hiss of intook breath practically undid Draco. If a fellow Death Eater responded that way, what would the rest of the world think? What would they see when they looked at him?

“Draco,” Snape said quietly, his voice full of anger and disappointment, and Draco had the sudden urge, more than ever before, to make it all not true. To Draco’s surprise, Snape rested his hand over Draco’s Mark. The warmth of the contact felt surprisingly good. He blinked up at the Potions Master in surprise.

“Madam Pomfrey tells me you are not injured in any way, except for a significant lack of food and sleep. Why is that, Draco?”

Draco flinched at his tone, but at the same time, the palm of his professor’s hand stayed resting gently over the Mark. The juxtaposition of his words and actions confused the Slytherin.

“After having a long talk about Harry’s similar propensities at the beginning of term,” Snape went on with strained patience, “about how he avoids food and sleep when he is upset, after we talked about this and you actually managed to correct him of it – then you pick up these selfsame habits. I am at a loss.”

Draco blinked. “Y-you’re here to talk about my sleeping habits?” he whispered.

“Amoung other things,” Snape sniffed. “Well?”

The words to describe the – the other things were on his lips. What did Snape hope to gain by delaying the inevitable?

“Uhm... I just... I’ve been finding I need less sleep of late–”

“I have several potions brewing several levels almost directly below us,” the Potions Master commented almost idly. “One of them is Veritaserum. You can tell me this – or perhaps we shall wait a day or two. And on that day, I will ask you everything from your sexual preference to at what age you stopped wetting the bed.”

“Professor!” Draco exclaimed, flushing. “Fine, fine!”

Snape smiled at him, genuinely, now. “Ah, in that at least you are still a young man. Threatened with embarrassment, a teenager will do anything.”

Draco would have wanted to wipe that smug expression off of his teacher’s face except for the fact that Snape’s hand was still resting gently on his forearm, almost like the other man had forgotten it was there.

More like he was hoping not to forget, Draco realized with a sinking heart. The Professor couldn’t help but feel the lines etched into his skin – each curve of the skull was an angry weal that had only ever gentled under Snape’s touch. Perhaps the other man wanted to hear everything Draco had to tell him, everything – with the black magic and evil shape of the Mark as a tactile backdrop for every word.

Then he would just have to convince the other man that the bloody thing meant nothing to him – or, more accurately, that it was the ruination of his life on angry red skin.

“It’s the dreams,” he said bluntly. “Potter’s.”

“Potter’s dreams have been keeping you awake.”

“Yes.” Draco glared at him, daring his Professor to dispute the truth he knew. “They’re his,” he said firmly. “They’re from his perspective – the Dark Lord’s. And then there are his ordinary nightmares.”

“You stopped sleeping. Not a particularly clever solution.”

Draco sighed. “Yes, all right,” he said.

“Yes, all right?” Snape echoed. “Do not be ridiculous, Mister Malfoy. How long has your awareness of Mister Potter been in effect? To what extent are you aware of Mister Potter, his thoughts, his feelings, his dreams? Why didn’t you say anything when I requested the information the first time?!”

Draco stiffened again, feeling himself press his bulk slightly into the hospital cot, as though he could push his way through somehow, emerge on the other side, but he kept his expression blank, icy. “Now who’s being obtuse?” he returned. “I know the side effects of the Imperius Curse as well as you.” He shifted up, so that his back was resting slightly against the bedframe, and ticked points off on his fingers with a casual idleness that belied his anxiety. “One: an increased respect and affection for the caster. Two: an increased awareness of the caster’s needs and desires. Three: the desire to be once more under the curse – from the same caster, especially. Put it together and you’ve essentially got a nasty case of dependence, especially if the caster and victim are compatible. But what’s going on with me isn’t only Imperius.”

“Explain.”

“It started in Dumbledore’s office,” Draco replied. “After the Imperius I was – I was aware of – I mean, Harry was there, yes, but I didn’t notice him much. I was so upset and confused, myself – what was a bit more upset and confusion? And then... I got this impression of a big, dark something rising in him.” Draco paused, then, looking up at Snape, who now looked slightly skeptical, as though what had been in Harry couldn’t’ve been all that destructive... Draco felt a crushing need to make him understand. “It was – it was –” For the first time he could remember, words were failing him. “Black, and thick, like tar, all congealing and rotten and rising to swallow him whole and from him to the rest of us–”

His potions professor placed a hand over his wrist. “I am aiding Mister Potter in removing his Obscuras,” he said quietly. “You do not need to place your soul on the line.”

The Slytherin shook his head. “The... the Obscura. It rises up to cover him, and – and I can’t help it. I pull it back. I don’t have a choice. And every time, after – he’s a step closer to me. After I connected to him in the Chamber of Secrets, I started having his nightmares.”

“I wish you’d said,” Snape muttered, running a hand through his hair irritably. “I would have digged through the tunnels to the Chamber by hand rather than let you, if I had known of any lingering connection. You keep too much to yourself, Draco...”

“Stones and glass houses, Professor,” Draco said sleepily. “I tried to tell you.”

“Take your behaviour in context,” Snape advised, a wry note entering his voice. “You did not say anything until that moment, in the – er, ladies room – and then you pitched an adolescent fit. I was a fool, but I can still follow the pattern of my thoughts – I supposed, first of all, that you would have told me about anything untoward. I also supposed that you were merely trying to avoid involving yourself further with Harry by refusing to connect to him. Finally, I believed you would not give in at all, if you knew that it would do you damage.”

“Sound reasoning.”

“Sound and perfectly flawed,” Snape filled in, “apparently.” He peered at Draco. “It certainly looks as though the Calming Draught has taken complete effect.”

Draco straightened in surprise. “Eh? That was you?”

“Of course; I asked Madam Pomfrey to add it to your Nutritive Draught. I knew we would have to talk, Draco, and I would have to tell you some things that would undoubtedly make you – agitated. And you would have to tell me some upsetting things as well, I am certain.”

Draco nodded. “Uhm... I – I’m not sure you know why I went home–”

“Lucius had been scheduled for the Kiss,” Snape said, “in Azkaban.” His hand briefly squeezed Draco’s arm.

“At first I did not understand why Mother wanted me to see that... but she said we ought to – to say goodbye.”

Snape did not say anything, just patiently waited for him to continue.

Draco felt overly warm, even under the influence of the Calming Draught, and tugged helplessly at his collar. “Father and I talked for hours, I can’t even remember what about, now. Mum had really come to leave him Granddad’s old wand so he could die like a pureblood, very discreet, and we sort of slipped away.” A small, almost uncertain sneer briefly decorated Draco’s features. “A day before he got up the courage to use it, though,” he said, “and – and mean it, right? You have to mean it for the Killing Curse to work.”

“Yes,” Snape said. “You have to mean it.”

“Then Mother and I were on the trip back, and – and I was sort of thinking about what must be going on back at Azkaban – and the hue and cry they would raise, wondering how he’d gotten a wand, and, well, Mum having just been there, would they put her in Azkaban, too? And that’s why I didn’t notice. I think that’s why.”

“Didn’t notice what, Draco?”

Draco started at the sound of his own name. He had almost forgotten Snape was in the room. “Uhm – all the people,” he recited, as though Snape should have known the answer. “The Death Eaters. At the Manor, I mean.”

“The Death Eaters were at Malfoy Manor,” Snape said slowly.

“Yes. They were there waiting for me. They kept talking and talking at the two of us – me and Mother – and Mother said she wouldn’t let them have me or something equally foolish – and I told her not to be stupid, that I’d been looking forward to it all my life, Father’s stories and all, and on and on about how much I hated the Boy Who Lived...” Draco heard his voice going strange, rapid and breathy, but he kept going. If he was ever to finish he had to do it at one go.

“Then I started thinking what I should do, because he was there himself; you know, him, and he was talking about mantles and responsibility and I thought I would cave right there and end up screaming, and I thought it would be wonderful if I were more Gryffindor, you know, because a Gryffindor would’ve thought up some way to save his mother, even if it meant he would die, and all I could do was just stand there and take it...”

“You mean more like Harry,” Snape provided in a somber voice.

Draco was startled his monologue had been interrupted. It was so very difficult to stop, returning to the present, only to have to submerge himself again the moment he regained his equilibrium. Didn’t the other man understand that?

“It isn’t every Gryffindor that saves the day, Mister Malfoy,” Snape filled in, almost gently.

“That’s exactly it,” Draco said. “I thought – well, I contacted Potter once, I’ll contact him again, right? So – so I called for him. Again and again. He didn’t answer, and I tried harder. Again and again. Right up until taking the Mark, when – when all I could think of...” He paused, unable to shake the image from his mind even now, the one that arose as the Mark twisted itself into him. “G-Granger,” he stammered anxiously.

Snape’s features twisted in some unnamable expression. “Miss Granger?”

Draco shook his head. “It’s nothing to do with that! It’s just – well, she’s a Mu... I mean, Muggleborn. And we’re – we’re sort-of friends. And there I was, kneeling in front of him. And I thought, if Granger could see me now, wouldn’t that put her knickers into a twist? And it all seemed – sort of funny, somehow. I wanted to laugh.”

“You were most likely skirting hysteria,” Snape informed him dryly.

Draco nodded slowly; he was desperate for any explanation of that particular impulse, the way horror and humor had twisted together in his gut.

“Just as well you held in your mirth. He might have thought you were taking the Mark lightly. May I judge by the disgust in your voice that if you were given the choice, you would not ally yourself with the Dark Lord?”

Draco looked up into the face of his Head of House, doubt writ on his features. “Will you kill me?” he wondered, although he knew what he had to say. The words buzzed in his mind, but he closed his lips around them.

“You idiot boy!” Snape spat. “Of course not! Whatever your answer, I shall try to sway you to my views.”

“And if you can’t?” Draco returned, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Only you would be so resistant under the effects of a Calming Draught,” Snape hissed at him.

After a moment of silence on Draco’s part, Snape broke and sighed. “If I cannot, I am afraid I will have to use an Obliviate to ensure that you cannot report me to the proper authorities.”

“Which would be...?” Draco inquired.

“You first,” Snape deadpanned.

Draco fumbled in his pockets for his wand, gripping it tightly before answering, just in case. “I don’t want to kill anyone,” he said slowly, feeling the words out in his head before allowing them to escape on his tongue. He closed his eyes to get a better feel for his emotions. “I certainly wouldn’t want to kill anyone for... for fun. And I sort of like Hermione Granger, although at first I rather thought she was the exception to the rule. And Dean Thomas, I partnered him once in Potions, and he was all right, except for the fact that he didn’t seem to want to talk much.” Draco opened one eye cautiously, pointing his wand at Snape through his robes.

Snape was looking at him oddly. “A child’s answer – from a child,” he finally said.

“Hey!”

The Potions Master tilted his head to one side, viewing Draco as though he were a particularly finicky potion. “There is nothing wrong with it,” he said at length; “the fact that you are a child, or the answer itself. Sometimes I forget you and Harry are children at all; your decisions are too important for children. It is a lucky thing for all of us that childlike choices are so often the right ones in the end.”

Draco puzzled this out and nodded, once. “You think avoiding – him – is the right choice?”

Snape straightened, eyeing Draco from beneath a sweep of near-black hair. “I think fighting him is,” he said coolly. “Of course, you are welcome to avoid that route as well; it holds dangers which most cannot imagine. I had hoped, however, that you might become a spy.”

Draco sensed that his jaw had long since dropped, and he shut it with a click. “Oh, Severus, you don’t want me!” he blurted. “I’m a coward!” He clapped his hands over his mouth.

“Hmm,” Snape said. “Calming Draught still in full effect. When was the last time you ate?”

Draco paused, counting back twenty-four hours first, based on Madam Pomfrey’s estimate. “Solid food?” he inquired.

Snape rolled his eyes expressively, and stood. “I will get some food Floo’d in from the kitchen. Then we will eat and we will talk.”

As Draco ate, slowly, listening to Severus Snape begin to spin the story of how he had become a Death Eater and how he had eventually (and secretly) changed sides, it came to him in sparks and flashes of hope that had been missing lately, as though the Mark had branded it out of him:

Maybe he had a future after all.