After Draco’s teasing of Harry in Potions class led to Snape’s open acknowledgement of his connection to The Boy Who Lived, Snape noticed that his godson had become withdrawn. Draco had been somewhat subdued ever since the attempt, earlier in the year, to blame him for a brutal assault on Potter. While Snape doubted that his godson had been particularly worried by the attack on Harry, Draco had been undeniably unsettled by the fact that fellow Slytherins had not only schemed to get him expelled but had also used his own wand, without his knowledge, in their plot to implicate him. He had been understandably leery of his own Housemates ever since, and he had stuck unusually close to his godfather. But as the time that Harry spent with Snape increased, and his two best friends began visiting Snape’s quarters as well, Draco became more remote.
Snape had expected a certain amount of resentment after he punished Draco for tormenting Harry. Although he had done it in the privacy of his quarters, rather than in the middle of class as he had previously threatened, he knew Draco would still sulk. The boy was a master at the art of sulking and tended to do so whenever his will was thwarted or he was rebuked, deservedly or not. In addition, Snape knew that Draco despised pain in any form, and he had never responded well to it, even if it was nothing more than a simple smack on the rear. Snape had long ago pointed this out to Lucius in the hopes that it would change the way he handled Draco, but Lucius had simply quoted one of the Dark Lord’s more incoherent statements about pain being the “purifier of purebloods’ strength”, and that was that. Any further remonstrance only made Lucius escalate his brutality in order to “beat the cowardice out of the boy”. In vain did Snape protest that Draco was no coward – he simply didn’t respond well to physical forms of discipline. It was much more effective to appeal to his vanity, his pride, or his intellect. Lucius, needless to say, felt no need to appeal to anything; he simply ordered, and Draco would obey or else.
Snape sighed. At least Potter took his swats philosophically – so long as he agreed that they were deserved – and even the Weasley boy had accepted his punishment from Snape with astonishingly good grace. Typical Gryffindors: they admited their errors, accepted the assigned penalty, and then moved on. Draco, by contrast, stewed over a punishment long after it was over… or useful to do so.
For that reason, Snape avoided using corporal punishment with Draco whenever possible, even if it gave the appearance of favoritism. Merlin knew that Lucius’ treatment of Draco was brutal, and Snape was desperate to give his godson an adult whom he could trust not to abuse him or beat him bloody, regardless of his behavior. Unfortunately, though, there were occasions when he was forced to spank the boy – either to enforce a previously stated consequence or because simple fairness demanded it. This last time, he had put his entire House on notice as to what they could expect if they violated his rule about teasing, and when Draco did so in a spectacularly public fashion, it was all he could do to avoid delivering the promised punishment in the same public forum.
Even in the privacy of Snape’s quarters, Draco had been anything but resigned to his fate. He had howled and argued and insisted that it was unfair, even as Snape gritted his teeth and administered the well-deserved swats. It was a very minor punishment compared to what Lucius routinely did to the boy, but to Draco it was still the deliberate infliction of pain by an adult who claimed to care for him. Snape couldn’t help but worry. He wanted so much to help Draco avoid joining the Dark Lord, but he wasn’t sure he would be able to overcome Lucius’ influence, nor reverse the arrogant attitude that Lucius had instilled in his son about how Malfoys were superior to everyone and as such, exempt from the normal rules of society.
Despite the fact that he’d expected Draco to withdraw from him after the punishment, as he had on previous occasions, Snape was still taken aback by how thoroughly Draco was now giving him the cold shoulder. He refused to make eye contact, volunteer answers in class, or seek him out for private conversations. Finally, after two full weeks of this behavior, Snape decided that something had to be done, lest his godson drift away completely.
He was on the lookout for some means by which to reengage the boy, when Draco himself provided the opening. Hagrid caught Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle attempting to “liberate” several baby Grindylows. Hagrid promptly deposited the culprits with Snape who, by subtly interrogating Crabbe and Goyle (“WHAT WERE YOU DUNDERHEADS DOING?”), quickly got the whole story. The boys were planning to introduce the creatures into Moaning Myrtle’s toilets in the hopes of colonizing Hogwarts’ entire plumbing system. The idea was, of course, Draco’s, and Snape quickly dispatched the two lumpish henchmen to a week’s detention with Filch. He kept Draco behind, sitting in a chair before Snape’s desk and staring at his tightly clasped hands.
“Would you care to explain your little escapade?” Snape asked icily.
“I thought it would be amusing,” Draco drawled, in perfect imitation of his father’s haughty tones.
“Indeed? I suspect you will not find the consequences of your actions particularly funny,” Snape fought to keep his voice level despite his anger at the boy’s attitude.
Draco squeezed his hands even tighter, fighting to prevent the terror he felt from seeping into his voice. The Grindylows had seemed like a good idea at the time – who could have expected Hagrid to be so vigilant? – and since Snape didn’t seem to care about him any more, then why should Draco hold himself back?
Lucius had never bothered to hide his contempt for Dumbledore and the rest of the school’s faculty – Snape excepted, of course, until he betrayed the Dark Lord by joining the “We Love Harry Potter” brigade. As a result, Draco knew his father wouldn’t be angered by any pranks he pulled at the school; far from it, he’d probably enjoy a good laugh at the thought of his son putting one over on the staff. In the past, Draco’s regard for his godfather, and his desire to please the man, had put a damper on his mischief-making tendencies, but now all restrictions were lifted. If Snape didn’t care about him anymore, then Draco had better start ingratiating himself with his father. At least that had been the idea, and it had seemed reasonable enough back in the Slytherin Tower.
However, sitting across from a coldly furious Potions Master, Draco was forced to reevaluate his plan. Even if Snape was now too busy coddling Potter to care about him personally, the man was still Head of Slytherin and loathed any behavior that embarrassed the House. Draco began to regret his decision to out-prank the Weasley twins. There must be other ways to impress his father, as well as to show Snape how little he cared about the man’s defection.
First, though, he had to deal with the fall-out of his current plan. He forced his spine to stiffen and did his best to emulate his father’s sneer. “Another smacking, I assume, followed by the week’s detention with Filch?” Draco hoped that his robes would hide his shaking knees when he got up.
“No, Draco. As you were the ringleader of tonight’s excitement, you will receive a more severe punishment. Your confederates’ emphasis on brawn over brain makes them ideally suited to labor under Mr Filch’s tender mercies. I have other plans for you.”
Draco made himself shrug carelessly. “Fine.”
Snape’s eyes flashed. “For the next two weeks, Mr Malfoy, you will present yourself every evening at my quarters. First you will work on a four foot essay on the proper care and feeding of Grindylows. Once you have completed that, you will turn your attention to a four foot essay on the Hogwarts plumbing system.”
“What?” Draco yelped, genuinely outraged. “You expect a Malfoy to write four feet on the toilets in this wreck?”
“Why, now that you mention it, that does seem wrong,” Snape said silkily. “Let’s make it six feet.”
“You can’t –“ Draco’s face was flushed with humiliation and fury. He knew perfectly well that on most, if not all of those nights, Potter and his idiot friends would be lounging around Snape’s quarters. Was that why Snape was making him come? To provide them with comic relief? If his traitorous godfather thought that he would sit there laboring away at such a ridiculous assignment while Perfect Potter and his friends sniggered and mocked him…
Snape’s patience was at an end. His affection for Draco might be limitless, but his tolerance for childish tantrums was not. “Mr Malfoy, you will do exactly what I say without your usual petulant display of temper, or I will not only give you the spanking you so richly deserve, but I will also notify your father of your hooligan-like behavior.”
Draco’s heart skipped a beat, and the complaints died on his lips. His father? Snape would actually contact his father? Snape had never before threatened him with Lucius. Quite the contrary, he’d always shielded Draco from his father’s wrath.
Draco fought back tears and fiercely reminded himself that he couldn’t care less. So what if this was another indication that Snape couldn’t be bothered with Draco any more? It wasn’t like it mattered to him. So what if Snape had found a new boy to take care of – The Moron Who Was Too Stupid To Die – and Draco was yesterday’s news? He didn’t like Snape anyway. Who needed some big nosed, greasy haired godfather to look out for him?
Snape was just a disloyal traitor. First he had betrayed the Dark Lord and now he’d betrayed Draco. So at least he was in good company, right? His father would certainly think so, and Draco had better start thinking like his father. It wasn’t like he had any other choices now.
Draco forced himself to admire his erstwhile godfather’s strategy. Turncoat though he was, Snape was still a Slytherin to the core, and he’d phrased his threat in the most effective way. He knew – as did Draco – that Lucius wouldn’t care if his son singlehandedly destroyed the castle’s infrastructure, starting with the toilets and ending with Dumbledore’s private quarters, but if his son and heir was reported to have behaved in a way that was ill-befitting a pureblood? He’d yank Draco back to Malfoy Manor for a weekend of “discipline” that would leave him raw and twitching for weeks afterwards.
All the fight went out of Draco. “Fine,” he mumbled, dropping his gaze back to his hands and slumping in the chair.
Snape eyed his godson in concern. This abrupt surrender was most unlike him. What was going on in the boy’s head? He knew all too well that Draco’s arrogant attitude concealed an enormous amount of insecurity, hardly a surprise given his father’s impossibly high standards, rigid code of eugenics, and brutal disciplinary methods. And Narcissa was no help. With a sister like Bellatrix, it was perhaps understandable why Narcissa had early on retreated into her own dream world. Nowadays, she only emerged long enough to play the devoted wife or mother during unavoidable public appearances. It wasn’t that she didn’t care for her son, but she had learned long ago that it wasn’t worth fighting with Lucius, and she had accordingly left Draco’s upbringing entirely to him.
Snape wondered if he had been wrong to threaten the boy with his father. But Draco had been so persistently defiant in the face of all other overtures, threats, and punishments that Snape had felt justified in using Lucius as a way to focus the boy’s attention and compel his obedience. Without such a threat, he had been more than half convinced that Draco would simply refuse to attend the detention. That would then escalate the matter and Snape would either find himself in another situation where he had to wallop the boy – thus making a bad situation even worse – or involve the Headmaster, which would inescapably involve Draco’s parents and thus bring about exactly what Snape had just threatened. He sighed. He needed to get Draco in amongst the Gryffindors, and if it took threats to make it happen, then that’s what he would use.