FIFTY: Chocolate

Harry nudged Draco in the side with his elbow until the Slytherin twitched and began stammering that he didn’t remember falling asleep and all sorts of other useless things until Harry hushed him. “Look!” he exclaimed. “Fawkes!”

It was indeed the phoenix, perched on Snape’s headboard and peering down at the older man. In Fawkes’s light, Snape looked different; in the orange glow, Snape’s cheeks took on the semblance of health. Harry could swear that, while in the reach of Fawkes’s light, the man breathed deeper and easier than before.

Draco’s gasp caught and rattled in his throat, and he gripped Harry’s arm tightly enough to hurt. “What’s it doing?” he demanded. “What is it doing to him?”

“Shh!” Harry exclaimed. “Watch...”

Fawkes gazed at the Professor in kindly compassion, as though the bird saw all of the man’s deepest sorrows. One pearly tear trembled at the tip of his beak before dropping to land directly in the middle of Professor Snape’s forehead. It rested there, shimmering in the gold light, and Harry watched Snape’s breathing grow deeper still. “Professor!” he exclaimed, hoping to wake Snape.

“The bloody bird is drooling all over him!” Draco exclaimed.

“Professor!” Harry called again.

Snape did not move; he did not so much as twitch.

Harry frowned. “But... I was so sure...”

Fawkes himself seemed startled and more saddened yet. He flew to Harry and made an odd, vibrant cooing sound, as close to a query as Harry supposed a bird could get.

“Sorry,” Harry whispered to him with a sigh. “I thought for sure you’d have it, too.” In the light of Fawkes’s glow, Harry could feel the memories of the attack slowly returning to him. Perhaps they had returned to him in his dreams, but Harry didn’t think so.

Fawkes cocked his head at Draco, who was staring at the huge bird in awe. The bird waddled from Harry to Draco, who flinched back slightly before holding ground.

“It’s... it’s...” Draco muttered, eyes wide. “...uhm, really something, isn’t it?”

“His name is Fawkes,” Harry offered.

Draco’s eyes slid up to Harry’s, then back down to the phoenix. “Hello, Fawkes,” he said.

The phoenix cooed at him.

Draco laughed, the genuine, slightly started laugh that Harry liked. “He answered!” He reached out a tentative hand to stroke the top of Fawkes’s head.

Harry watched the Slytherin grow calmer in petting the bird. Fawkes, for his part, was staring up at Draco with a wise, increasingly sorrowful expression.

A small tear-drop landed on Draco’s other hand, which he snatched back, rubbing furiously. “What...?!”

Fawkes waddled to the edge of the mattress, leapt from there to the bedpost, launched himself into the air, and disappeared.

“Maybe he was hoping to get luckier on the second try,” Harry said gloomily.

Draco snorted. In the absence of the gold light, he seemed much more his usual sarcastic self. “I don’t get it. I thought phoenix tears were supposed to cure anything and everything.”

Harry sighed. “They are.”

“I guess Cruciatus was too much for him,” Draco agreed. He shuddered.

Harry pondered this statement, which seemed intrinsically wrong to him. Fawkes had saved him from the brink of death from a basilisk wound. If the phoenix could do that, what was it about the Cruciatus Curse that was so much more difficult to cure? “Do phoenix tears only work on external injuries?” Harry wondered aloud.

“No,” Draco muttered, already beginning to sound sleepy again. He sat up more fully, obviously with the intent of avoiding another impromptu nap. “No, it’s supposed to help with anything.” He frowned. “Why?”

Harry wet his lips nervously. “Well – look. If Fawkes could heal me, he should be able to heal Professor Snape.”

“’Should’ isn’t ‘is’, you know.”

“I guess... but if it can’t be fixed, even by a phoenix... then maybe nothing’s broken?”

“Of course it is!” Draco snapped. “He’s barely breathing, all of those diagnostic spells say he’s already dead!”

Harry shook his head. “No... one says he’s alive. Think about it.”

Draco opened his mouth to retort, then paused. “You... you mean a potion, don’t you?”

Harry’s eyes connected with Draco’s, the idea sparking between them. “If I were Snape, I would’ve figured a way to play dead the minute I joined up with Voldemort, or at least the minute I turned against him. Wouldn’t you?”

“Four diagnostic spells say he is dead, but the fifth doesn’t,” Draco mused with growing hope. “There are potions designed to fool tests like that.”

“Like Draught of the Living Death,” Harry said.

The Slytherin nodded eagerly. “He could’ve had some on him and drank it before Cruciatus. It takes at least fifteen minutes before the potion really kicks in, but he could have found some way to extend that, to make passing out look like it was a result of the t-torture. So Draught of the Living Death... but modified by him...”

“...which could make it hard to counter. But he wouldn’t want to make it tough. He’d know someone would have to wake him, right? Maybe it’s simple.”

“Like Accio Firebolt,” Draco contributed wryly. “Probably. So he’d need a potions cure-all.”

They grinned at one another. Harry could see Professor Snape’s own writing in his mind, written in the margins of one of the man’s old Potions texts: Shove a beozar down their throats.

“Do you think it’d work?” Draco breathed.

“Only one way to find out,” Harry replied, a gleam of mischievousness entering his eyes. He scanned the Wing. “D’you see Madam Pomfrey anywhere?”

Draco shook his head. “Obviously she went to sleep a long time ago, like we would if we were sensible–”

Harry hushed him. “Look, we can test our theory pretty easily. There’s Madam Pomfrey’s office... all we have to do is steal one beozar and give it to Professor Snape. It isn’t poisonous in and of itself, so we can’t do any harm...”

“Since when are you such an expert on Potions ingredients?” Draco groused, but Harry wasn’t listening. He was already creeping towards Madam Pomfrey’s office door, using a simple Alohamora to gain admittance. “Potter!” Draco hissed, looking at the several other patients dotting the otherwise empty beds in the Hospital Wing. “You’ll wake everyone!” Draco swore under his breath, then crept after Harry.

And crashed into him from behind. “Why have you...?!”

“Look!” Harry exclaimed. Draco swore again, then did.

There were hundreds of jars all along the wall: jars made of aluminum, faceted jars made of blue glass, ball jars with screw-top lids, earthenware jars that looked like they belonged in an Egyptian museum.

None of them had labels.

“Have you forgotten you’re a bloody wizard?” Draco sneered. “Accio beozar jar!”

A small, earthenware jar flew to his hand with enough surprising force that he stumbled into Harry, who tripped, who knocked over a small shelf lined with delicate bottles made of blown glass and trailing with filigree. Each one crashed to the ground with an almost physically painful noise. The two boys froze, eyeing each other in the quiet, awaiting the scolding voice which was sure to come, but the room echoed in its silence.

Draco’s shoulders drooped and he breathed a huge sigh of relief.

“Come on!” Harry exclaimed. He and Draco moved to Snape’s bedside and exchanged an anxious glance. They heard footsteps approaching, and froze.

“We may have tripped an alarm,” Draco realized. “Shit!”

“Do it! Now, while we still have a chance!” Harry ordered.

Draco fumbled with the stopper, obeying for once without pausing for the sake of his pride. He dropped the jar in his nervousness, which shattered, scattering bezoars all over the floor. Harry caught one as it skittered towards him, tossing it to Draco, who snagged it from the air with all the reflexes of a Seeker.

“H-How?” he stammered.

“Just shove it in his mouth!” Harry exclaimed, just as the door to the Hospital Wing flew open, admitting Madam Pomfrey and a sleepy-looking Professor Lupin.

“Harry! Draco!” the mediwitch exclaimed. “What are you...?”

“Now, Draco!” Harry exclaimed.

Draco nodded and, making a face, stuck his hand halfway into the Professor’s mouth, dropping the beozar at the back of his throat.

“You’ll suffocate him!” the witch exclaimed, running to Professor Snape’s side and attempting to hook the offending item away with her pinkie finger. She sighed in relief when the Potions Master swallowed without choking. When she turned to Harry and Draco, however, her face was red and flushed, and her eyes were filled with tears. “Boys!!! Just what did you think you were doing?!”

Professor Lupin moved completely into the Wing, still looking confused and mostly asleep. “What are you doing with Severus?”

Harry blinked, startled at the use of his Professor’s first name. “Uhm... just trying a beozar, sir.”

“A... poison antidote?” Lupin inquired, looking slightly more alert.

Draco coughed, looking surprised. Harry tried not to hold it against him; Professor Lupin was so scruffy-looking that it was hard for Harry to remember, sometimes, just how competent he was in his field.

“A beozar?” Madam Pomfrey echoed. “Well... it won’t do any harm, at least. But what were you thinking, breaking into my private office like that? Twenty points from Slytherin, and twenty from Gryffindor!”

Harry sighed. “Don’t take the points from Slytherin,” he said. “I was the one who broke in. Draco told me not to.”

Madam Pomfrey sighed. “Very well. Fifteen points to Slytherin – and five to Gryffindor for being so honest, Harry. But still...”

“When is it supposed to work?” Draco inquired, just as Professor Snape sat up in bed, rubbing the back of his neck as though he had a crick in it.

Harry grinned. “Right about now,” he breathed.

Draco grinned back at him, but the expression broke quickly. Harry watched as the blond went from elated, to startled, to panic-stricken. Harry’s attention was distracted, however, by the odd sight of Lupin throwing his arms around Snape and squeezing.

Snape tolerated it with better grace than Harry might’ve thought; while he remained silent and unyielding, he did not immediately shove Lupin onto the floor, which, Harry decided, showed great forbearance on his part. Lupin detached of his own volition, wearing the grin that Harry was certain decorated his own features.

Then Snape said the most human thing Harry had ever heard from his lips. “Why are you all staring at me?” A pause, a reassertion of his usual tone. “...and grinning like madmen?”

Of course, that only made everybody grin more widely, except for Draco, who was trembling, looking like he might drop to the floor on the spot.

Snape’s gaze hardened when it lit on him. “Draco...?” he muttered, the inquiry sounding wary, laced with doubt. The Potion Master’s black eyes swung up to Professor Lupin, then, and he frowned. “Madam Pomfrey, if you would excuse us? There is no reason to further disturb your sleep.”

Madam Pomfrey eyed him with a professional air for a moment before nodding. Harry watched the witch and knew that she was well aware of the tension lacing the room; it was in the tightness of her features and her darting eyes. She left, however, which meant she trusted Snape, or Lupin, or both, not to do anything foolish.

“What is it, Professor?” Harry inquired.

“Come stand over here, Harry,” Snape ordered, his eyes on the other two.

Harry did as ordered, not realizing what the look on the man’s face really meant until Snape nicked the wand from Harry’s left pocket and pointed it at some middle-distance directly between Draco and Professor Lupin.

“Oh,” Harry said, stupidly.

Lupin froze – rather intelligently, Harry thought – but Draco made the mistake of attempting to draw closer. Soon Harry’s wand and the will behind it were focussed solely on the Slytherin. Harry twitched but Snape’s free arm shot out to grip his wrist tightly, preventing him from moving.

“Severus,” Lupin said quietly but firmly, “none of us are here to hurt you...”

From the tone of his voice and his non-threatening stance, it was obvious that Professor Lupin believed Snape’s actions were due to some sort of post-Cruciatus psychosis; Harry wasn’t so sure.

Snape snorted eloquently. “One of you betrayed us. I was certain it was Draco, but now he is here and Harry is alive... which leads me to re-include you, Lupin, in my list of suspects... You have been acting very odd, lately...”

Harry watched as the Professor’s concern for Snape fled his features and he began to consider the issue at hand. “Why would I befriend you in order to betray you? We’ve had this conversation, Severus. Over the course of our acquaintance, you haven’t told me anything about the Order I didn’t know already. First of all, I’ve known you were a spy for the Order for years. Why would I need to befriend you to betray that particular confidence? Second, since I am in the Order myself, I am certain you possess very few secrets that are not already mine.” Lupin tsked under his breath. “Put that bloody thing away, will you? I’m getting tired of standing at the end of your wand.”

Snape frowned, looking confused; it was obviously a lot to deal with right after having been in the Living Death for five days. “You, though,” he muttered, his wand twitching to Draco. “You found out I was a spy so recently...”

Draco jerked a nod, and Harry found himself instinctively stepping towards the blond boy, utterly forgetting the grip closed over his wrist – which was quite an oversight, given that the fingers on his left hand were going tingly.

“You told him...” Snape said. It was not a question.

Draco moved to the man’s other side, heedless of the wand that drew nearer and nearer to him until it rested against the hollow of his throat, which jerked as he swallowed. “It was me,” he said.

Snape’s eyes crinkled in a profound sorrow for an instant before hardening again.

Draco knelt down next to Snape’s cot, his face white and his entire body still trembling.

Harry jerked his hand free of his professor’s grip, then moved to stand beside the other boy. “Professor!” he exclaimed, because it was necessary in order to get Snape to take his eyes off of Draco at all. “I know it must’ve been terrible, but you’re alive... and maybe what Draco did was the only way he could save both you and his mum, did you think of that?”

Snape raised his eyebrows at Harry’s impassioned defense. “As admirable as your loyalty is, Mister Potter, it is misplaced; and, as cheerful as your statement is, the ends do not justify the means. It could have turned out considerably worse...”

Harry choked back a laugh, but Draco was far too on edge to reign in the emotion; the blond boy giggled nervously, swallowing the sound under Snape’s black glare.

“There is something funny, here, Mister Malfoy? Something amusing in all of this? Please do share it with the rest of the class,” he said icily. “I certainly could use a good laugh.”

“It all depends on the ends and the means,” Draco replied. Then, with slightly less composure, “...I couldn’t think of another way. Whatever I did, he had the upper hand. I’m not worthy of House Slytherin, I know it. I couldn’t think of anything to do, and I couldn’t escape without leaving her...”

Remus smiled gently at the harried tones of Draco’s voice. “I think he’s sincere, Severus. Besides, it would be awfully hypocritical of you to condemn him, don’t you agree?”

Snape looked up with a sneer on his lips, but something in the other man’s expression stilled him. He drew in a deep breath, then exhaled it slowly. He drew Draco up to stare at him; Harry watched as Draco allowed himself to be Legilimized, but with the viewing came a certain amount of vertigo, as though he were being examined a split-second after Draco was. It was the psychic equivalent of a double-image and it was making him dizzy.

“You are genuine,” Snape finally said, releasing Draco’s shoulder and half-shoving him away. “I do not understand. You were genuinely for the Dark Lord mere months ago.”

“I hate him,” Draco said simply.

The pale man sneered. “Hate won’t be enough. When you took this,” he began, pulling Draco’s sleeve up, “you swore to–”

Harry watched Snape’s face drain of color. He hadn’t thought such a thing possible, given how gaunt and pale the man already was. Harry leaned forward to find –

Draco’s unblemished forearm.

Snape flipped it over.

Nothing.

“What...?!” Snape hissed, looking up at Draco as though the boy had betrayed him personally in his sudden ability to rid himself of the Mark. When Snape thought to examine his own forearm, the Mark was still there.

“Fawkes,” Harry breathed. “He must’ve healed it.”

Lupin and Snape turned to stare at Harry. “Fawkes was here?” Lupin inquired, a tightness in his voice that Harry didn’t recognize.

“Yeah,” Harry confirmed, nodding. “He went to Professor Snape and cried, but it didn’t do any good. That was how me and Draco figured out that he wasn’t sick, he was under the influence of a potion.” He paused to smile at Draco, who attempted a sickly one in return. “Then he came over to Draco and cried on him. Draco rubbed the tear up his arm; it must’ve found the Mark and got rid of it.”

“That’s impossible,” Snape scoffed. “Unless...” He looked up at Lupin.

Professor Lupin smiled sweetly. “He can’t maintain the Mark anymore. Due to his demise.”

Snape frowned for a moment as though the words themselves puzzled him. Then his eyes found Harry’s.

Harry grinned. “It wasn’t me, although I appreciate the implied confidence in my abilities,” he said, quirking an eyebrow. “Not Dumbledore, either. I’m beginning to think prophesies are complete and utter nonsense. Especially considering it’s Trelawney of all people that said it...”

Draco flushed. “Uhm...” he said in a small voice. When the others looked up, he continued. “But I think it makes perfect sense.”

Draco’s words were swallowed by Snape’s. “Are you sure? Perfectly certain?”

Lupin grinned. “Incredibly.” His lips twisted. “I saw the body.”

“Poor Hermione practically got crushed under it,” Harry added. “He came to Hogwarts, I’m not sure you knew.”

“And where were you when this was all happening?” Snape demanded, glaring at Draco.

Draco winced. “On my broom.”

“Casting Avada Kedavra and getting it right the first time,” Harry said with a grin.

“Wasn’t my first,” Draco demurred.

Harry decided he didn’t want to know.

“He did it, Severus,” Lupin added. “Draco’s the one who killed him – He-Who-”

“-damn-well-ought-to-be-named,” Harry broke in. “Voldemort. His name has no power anymore, if it ever did. He’s dead, you know.” He said it again, because it sounded so good. “He’s dead.”

There was a moment of quiet while Snape absorbed this information. “Draco?”

Draco drew slightly closer, his adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed again past his fear. “Yeah?”

Snape looked him over. “Congratulations on being the first wizard to ever incur and fulfill a wizard’s debt within the space of a moment.”

Draco blinked.

“Huh?” Harry muttered.

“You doomed me, then saved my life in the same breath,” the dark-haired man added. “Considering that fact, and my own... dubious past,” he tacked on, black eyes flicking up briefly to Lupin, then back again, “it would be difficult for me to condemn you. Especially considering that your actions have possibly saved the entire Wizarding World.” Severus snorted. “Consider yourself lucky that you have caught me in perhaps the best mood of my life.”

Draco shivered, poleaxed, then dropped to the floor in abject startlement, his knees going out from under him.

“Draco!” Harry moved to the blond boy’s side. “Draco, this is good news!”

Lupin looked down at Draco kindly. “I think this may have been a difficult time for Mister Malfoy,” he said mildly. He dug around in his pockets, presenting a small object to Draco. “Chocolate?” he inquired.

Snape rolled his eyes, running his left hand through his hair. “You think chocolate is the answer to everything, don’t you?”

Lupin affected surprise. “Isn’t it?”

Indeed, Draco, making his way through the small bar of dark chocolate, seemed to be slowly coming back to himself. “Thank you,” he said to Lupin. He turned to his other professor. “Uhm... thank you,” he repeated.

“I will think of some other ways for you to make it up to me,” Professor Snape said, an odd glint in his eye. “You can be sure of that. Besides, I believe I shall be keeping my eye on you. Just to be certain you do not undergo another... change of heart.”

“Oh,” Draco said, going pale all over again. He stood, nodding formally to both Professors, then turned to Harry. “Good night,” he said, and the change in stance and tone warmed Harry to the tips of his fingers.

“’Night,” Harry said. He didn’t think he would ever forget that, when Draco had to choose between life and Voldemort, or death and Harry, he’d chosen the latter – no matter how it had turned out.

Draco gave his usual half-smile and a wave, and was gone from the Hospital Wing.

“He really did it,” Snape said, somewhere between question and statement of fact.

“It was brilliant,” Harry confirmed.

“Draco Malfoy is the last student of mine I would have expected to develop a case of heroics,” the dark-haired man added doubtfully. “Much less fall apart once it was all over.”

“Our students often surprise us,” Lupin commented dryly. He glanced at Harry, who grinned.

“Everyone’s Gryffindor in the right circumstances,” Harry added, shifting his glasses up with one finger.

“And Slytherin in the wrong ones?” Snape demanded.

“No, I think you’re born Slytherin,” Harry replied. “Or not. What do you think, Professor?”

Lupin paused to consider. “Yes, you need something special for that,” he replied. “Severus?”

“I think that the pair of you are perfectly ridiculous,” Snape replied, but he was too obviously suppressing a smile to be taken very seriously, himself. A pause. “He’s really dead?”

“Yes, Severus,” Lupin replied, with fond exasperation. The sandy-haired man reached out to squeeze Snape’s shoulder. “Forever and ever, if the Order has anything to say about it. You’re done with being a spy.”

“Merciful Merlin,” Snape breathed.

“Yes, it’s a shock,” Lupin replied sympathetically. He rooted around in the pockets of his voluminous robes. “Chocolate?”

Snape glared.