Draco carefully made sure that he had brushed all traces of dust from his cloak and hair before he knocked on the door of Professor Snape’s office. The hidden room where he was trying to repair the Vanishing Cabinet was far dirtier than he would have thought it would be, for such a valuable place in Hogwarts.

             On the other hand, that also proved that not many people knew about the room, and he had been smart to find it and think of completing his task there. Draco smirked as he knocked. The Dark Mark didn’t seem to burn as much when he gloated.

             “Enter.”

             Draco opened the door and strode confidently into the office. He was at home here as not many students were. Professor Snape recognized talent when he saw it, and it didn’t matter that that insufferable idiot Slughorn seemed to prefer Potter to Draco. That couldn’t destroy the special treatment Draco had got from his Head of House over the years, or the special Potions knowledge that he carried in his head, or the conviction that real genius would always triumph over the shallow, flashy things that Potter did in class.

             Professor Snape sat behind his desk, marking, as usual. Draco took a curious glance around, wondering if anything had changed now that Professor Snape taught Defense instead of Potions. Other than the addition of a few complicated diagrams that Draco thought depicted battlefields on the walls, nothing had. There were still ranks of potions, bookshelves, and sets of empty, clean vials all waiting in order.

 Draco smiled. When he was eleven, he had thought paradise must look something like Professor Snape’s Potions lab.

 “What do you wish, Mr. Malfoy?” Professor Snape had lifted his head, and hadn’t changed his neutral expression when he realized who it was. His hands lay folded on the desk in front of him as if nothing interested him less than a visit like this.

 That didn’t fool Draco. Professor Snape wasn’t a demonstrative person. Draco was used to that, having grown up with his father. What mattered was that he wasn’t sneering or yelling. That meant Draco had a chance to prove himself.

             “I was wondering, sir…” he said, trailing off and lowering his eyes. He was genuinely nervous, but he also wanted to intrigue the professor enough to make him ask a few questions. Draco was low on people who were interested in his fate right now.

             “Yes?” The professor’s voice carried a sneer that made Draco speak quickly. He didn’t want to irritate him. He wasn’t Harry Potter, to think himself honored by someone casting Dark spells at him.

             “You have a wide knowledge of Dark magic,” Draco said. “More than we’re ever going to learn here. I was wondering if you would be opposed to teaching me some of it. Only the spells that wouldn’t bring the Ministry down on our heads, of course.” He tacked an apologetic smile on his face before he looked up.

             Professor Snape had an eyebrow raised and no ugly twisting of his lips. Good. That was the first step. Draco would have had to fight the urge to scurry for cover if he was smirking.

             “All of this is true,” Professor Snape said, tapping his fingertips together as if he had some caked substance on them that he wanted to get off. “But I wonder what should persuade me to help you rather than simply send you on your way with a Memory Charm.”

             Draco caught his breath, then shook his head. The professor didn’t waste words. If he had intended to really do that to Draco, he would have cast the Memory Charm already.

             “Because there are certain things that I need to know, sir,” he said. “Certain people who would like to see me learn them, and whom I want to please.” He moved a little to the left so that his arm stuck out a bit, then pulled it back to his side as if that had been an accidental motion. “And others who wouldn’t like me to learn it, and whom I’m committed to disappointing.”

             That was as close as he could come to telling the professor that he had made his choices and was an adult now. He stood still, holding the man’s eyes, and waited.

             Professor Snape sat still so long that Draco was sure he would be thrown out of the room with a Memory Charm after all. Then he stood and went to one of the bookshelves. Draco shut his eyes and tried not to sway on his feet with relief. He should have expected this. His father would have had more confidence.

             “Here.”

             Draco opened his eyes in shock. He hadn’t heard Professor Snape cross the floor back towards him.

             The book he was holding out was a heavy, dark thing, the cover feeling less like leather when Draco took it and more like petrified wood. There was no title on the spine, but one embossed on the front in glittering silver letters when Draco turned it over. Spells for the Strong of Heart.

             “Because of a shameless pretense that the Headmaster wishes me to indulge in,” Professor Snape drawled, moving back towards the desk, “I cannot spare much time to tutor you. I must tutor Potter instead, and try to ‘get along’ with him.” Those words were not much emphasized, but still, Draco had no doubt of the venom that dripped from them. “Heaven forbid that someone in the school show such aversion as I do towards Dumbledore’s pet.”

             “I can learn by studying the book, sir,” Draco said firmly, closing his hands around it. “Thank you.”

             Professor Snape flicked a finger. Draco took the signal, bowed to him, and then left, shrinking the book as he went and sliding it into a robe pocket. No need to make it easy for his enemies to catch him.

             His heartbeat calmed down as he walked back towards Slytherin, and he began to smile for real as he reached the common room door. He could do this. It wouldn’t be easy, but he could fulfill the Dark Lord’s wishes and spare his parents torture.

             In a way, the Dark Lord had even been honoring him, by giving Draco this task and assuming it was not beyond his abilities. He could easily have given it to someone else instead, someone who had much more time in his service than Draco did and would have been eager for the glory.

             Let me look at it in that light. It’s a compliment. It must be.

 *

             It did not take Albus long to come to the fireplace in his office, for which Severus was grateful. He despised talking by Floo. The soot got ground into one’s robes and knees, and he had assumed enough undignified postures in his younger days—and still must, whenever he went before the Dark Lord. He did not relish kneeling down to look into the fire.

             “We have a serious problem, Headmaster,” Severus said when he saw those sharp blue eyes looking back at him, and then described Draco’s behavior and the way he was certain the boy had received the Dark Mark.

             Albus was silent for some minutes, his fingers rubbing the scar on his arm that the Dark artifact had left. Severus examined it, since Albus was not looking up at the moment and would not catch him at it. To his satisfaction, he saw no sign of returning green or grey or any other colors that would indicate a problem. Albus’s weakness would be contained only in rumors, not in reality.

             Finally, the Headmaster looked up, by which time Severus had made his gaze blandly courteous again.

             “I wish to spare the boy,” Albus said quietly. “Because he is young and innocent, and carries something of a child’s soul in him still. I am afraid I must ask you for another expenditure of your time, Severus.”

             “To watch over him and attempt to turn him, subtly?” Severus could have laughed when Albus blinked. At times it was pleasant to surprise the Headmaster by his intelligence.

             Sourness would have followed the thought if he let it. He knew exactly why Albus was prone to underestimate his cleverness. One stupid mistake had left its mark on the Headmaster’s mind even more than it had on Severus’s.

             But he would have to brood on that later, with Potter’s detention in a few minutes and Albus nodding now. “Yes. I fear it must be subtle, because the boy seems unlikely to listen to common sense if presented to him.” His voice was weary.

             Growing up with his particular parents, it would have been a miracle to expect him to. Severus bowed his head and said, “I will keep an eye on him and report to you regularly on how this is going, along with my other—project.”

             “I wish you would not think of Harry as a mere project, Severus.” Albus’s voice was gently chiding.

            “Given my current relationship to the brat, I can do naught else,” Severus said, and then ended the Floo conversation. At least his careful choice of words had ensured that the last expression on Albus’s face was a relaxed one. He was thinking that Severus would try to change the “current” relationship into a “new” one that would reflect Albus’s wishes more closely.

             Exactly five minutes late came a knock on his door. Severus could have told that knock from Draco’s if his ears has been muffled in layers of cloth. Draco did not assume he was welcome; he tapped cautiously and respectfully, always mindful that Severus might be doing something else. Potter knocked as though he wanted to know why Severus hadn’t already opened the door.

             Severus leaned back in his chair and almost hissed the words, “Come in.” His hands were warm with excitement as he reached down to grip his wand. Oh, he was looking forwards to this.

 *

             Harry walked through the door with his shoulders slouching and his face sullen. It was the kind of look that would make Uncle Vernon yell at him. From the way that Snape’s eyes narrowed, it had the same effect on him.

             Good. Harry had come up with all sorts of plans for Dumbledore’s Army in the last few hours, since Ron and Hermione had commented that they didn’t know most of the spells he’d used in Defense Against the Dark Arts. The sooner Snape realized he couldn’t train Harry like a performing dog, the sooner Harry could start his real learning.

             “I’m here,” he said as the door swung shut behind him. He shivered in spite of himself at the clang, but when he listened hard, he didn’t hear the click of locking spells. That was all right, then. He could still get out.

             Snape took his sweet time standing up from behind his desk and coming around it. Harry tilted back his head so that he could see all of him at once. He was irritated that, even after a small growth spurt, Snape was so much taller than him and always would be.

             So much for the idea that the father shows up in the son. And Harry decided that he would do his best not to be irritated by his height again, because it was something that made him different from Snape, and that was something to be glad for.

             “You will learn discipline,” Snape said, as if they’d been talking when he saw Harry last and were continuing the conversation now. He started moving, circling around. Harry turned to face him each time. He can’t intimidate me. He thinks he can, but he can’t. “You will learn punctuality. You will learn to work with me as I struggle to make you into a fighter deserving of the Headmaster’s confidence.” He curled his lip. “An impossible task, doubtless, but one that I have agreed to take on, and, therefore, one that I will not fail at.”

             Confident, aren’t we? Harry thought, and stuck out his lip, and stood still. Snape aimed his wand at him.

             “Prepare to duel,” he said.

             It took all of Harry’s self-control to keep from bringing his wand up in response. He had to defend himself, all his instincts shrieked. But then he reminded himself that that would mean Snape had won, and these stupid “training” sessions would continue. He stood still.

             Snape’s first spell hit him in the leg and hurled him to the floor. Harry landed with a wince, but he hadn’t hit his head; his falling hands had caught him in time. He got up with a bruise and a slight limp, and then stood there and looked up into Snape’s angry face.

             “What is this, Potter?” he hissed. “Have you lost your magic?”

             “I’m sorry that I’m not any good at it,” Harry said, and Snape looked like a vampire baring his teeth.

             “You forget,” he said, his voice deepening until Harry felt it in his bones more than he heard it. “I saw what you were capable of in the Defense classroom earlier today. Skill like that does not vanish between one class and another—unless the student wills it to do so. You will show me the right responses.” He paused, then added, in a tone of disgust that sounded barely controlled, “I have no idea why you would wish to deny your talent in any case. One would think that the great Harry Potter would adore being fawned on by his teachers for something he did while he was an adolescent, rather than when he was a baby.”

             Harry gritted his teeth. That insult stung more than he wanted to, since he did often feel that many people thought his “defeat” of Voldemort when he was a baby was worth more than anything he’d done since. He might as well have stopped living when he was a year and a half old.

             You can’t let Snape get to you, he reminded himself, and then said, “Maybe I just got lucky, sir.”

             “No, you did not.” Snape moved a pace or two nearer, and his voice and his face were both full of hatred. “You will not defy me, Potter. Your skill is important to this war, and it will be honed.”

             Harry sneered at him. “No, it won’t. Not by you.”

 *

             Severus could not remember the last time he had allowed himself to feel this much rage. It surrounded him in a swirling red vortex, so near to drowning him that his limbs trembled and his heart raced.

             How dare the brat? Severus knew what he had seen. He had the orders from Albus to train Potter however he needed to in order to bring out those skills that would spell doom for the Dark Lord in the end. And the boy himself had cooperated in the Defense classroom, showing Severus that he would not be utterly wasting his time. How dare he try to inspire Severus to doubt the evidence of his senses?

             He glanced down at the way Potter held his leg. He evidently preferred being wounded to cooperation.

             That thought alone saved Severus from falling into his anger. He still could not comprehend the reasons that Potter would want to hide and subdue his skill, but he thought it probably had something to do with Potter’s hatred of him. Potter would do anything rather than gratify a request from his Potions teacher.

             No. His Defense teacher, now.

             Severus did not think merely insulting the boy would work. Nor could he assign him detentions doing ordinary tasks; Potter’s mulish expression said that he would take that over dueling. And while he could still take points, Potter probably had the support of others in his House, or he would not have begun to do this in the first place.

             So I must attack him from a direction that he will least expect, bearing the truth in my words.

             “It is a wonder to me,” Severus said, drawing himself up to his full height and letting his voice drip with disdain, “why you wish to hide your obvious intelligence and talent.”

             Potter blinked and took a step backwards, as if he thought that Severus would charge at him in a minute. There was no denying that Severus would have liked to. But achieving his goals came before all else, and frightening Potter—if it could be done—would not contribute materially to them.

             “What do you mean?” Potter asked, and his tone had changed from sulky to belligerent. Severus smiled. Excellent. It is always easier to influence Potter when he is angry. “I’m stupid. You always said so.”

             “But now I know better,” Severus said, and gave a long-suffering sigh, moving past Potter and back to his desk. The boy watched him and blinked like an owl who had been offered a letter and then sent away without it. “Now I know that you could have done well in Potions, but you squashed your abilities. I hear from Professor Slughorn that you have been achieving remarkable successes in his classes.”

             For some reason, Potter flushed, but shook his head. “Don’t say things like that,” he said, “I know you don’t believe them.”

             “And are not my lies more pleasant to listen to than my usual mode of speaking to you?” Severus murmured. The anger still lurked, waiting. Severus beat it back with stern hands. Becoming enraged would allow Potter to win.

             When he thought of that, it was much easier to hold Potter’s eyes and continue in a level, neutral tone without betraying any flicker of how distasteful it was to him to praise this shining example of student malfeasance. “You could do much better than you have. I saw it in the classroom this morning. You blazed. You will not convince me to believe again that you are simply incompetent.”

             Potter’s eyes widened, and he stood still a moment. Then he laughed. Severus clenched his fingers into his palms, glad that his hands were inside his sleeves and Potter could not see them.

             “I don’t know what kind of trick you’ve decided to play now,” Potter said, when his laughter died away and he was shaking his head in what looked like amused exasperation at Severus’s response. “But I think it’s a stupid one. You’re not going to make me believe that you want to teach me, no matter how you try. You’ve already said that it was Dumbledore’s idea that we start working together again—”

             “Professor Dumbledore,” Severus corrected sharply, but Potter continued in the cheerful tone that said he was going to ignore every caution Severus could give him.

             “Which means that you don’t want to teach me. And I don’t want to learn. And no matter how long you keep me here, that won’t change.” Potter folded his arms and gave Severus the most idiotic smirk he had ever seen, even counting the time that an eleven-year-old Draco had proudly told Severus about breaking the rules and assumed he would get away with it.

             Severus trembled, though with the kind of faint shiver that would make no motion in his robe and which Potter would therefore never notice. His wand was still in his hand. He could lift it and cast a curse without trouble. It would be so wonderful to see Potter sprawled on the floor, gasping in shock as his legs were burned or—

             Or nothing. Those were not the kinds of spells that Severus could use in school without consequences and notice, or else the Dark Lord would have demanded long ago that he assassinate Albus and there would have been no sane excuse for Severus to refuse.

             Then the perfect plan came to him, settling on his mind like a blanket of soothing mist and cooling his anger. Of course. The proper way to settle this debate that should not be a debate was to use Potter’s instincts against him, much as he had done in the Defense classroom without knowing it. Given what he realized about Potter’s intent to defy him now, Severus thought Potter would not have responded with such brilliance if given the time to think about it rationally.

             He opened his mouth as if he would reply. Potter leaned forwards.

             Severus whipped his wand up and nonverbally incanted the Icehands Curse. The white spell that blazed at the tip of his wand and then struck straight for Potter like a beam of moonlight left him no time to respond.

             Except by listening to his muscles and his mind, and raising a Fire Shield in front of himself. The fire crackled hungrily, spreading out in a circle crisscrossed by eight scarlet lines that eagerly swallowed the ice. Severus listened to the grinding shriek and clash of the magic fighting, and awaited the inevitable result. This time, he had paid more attention to the shifting power levels in the room as Potter cast, and he knew that the brat had some raw strength. The problem was that he did not have finesse.

             Finesse was what Severus would teach him, no matter how long it took.

             The fire condensed into a tiny ball of radiant yellow around the last of Severus’s curse and vanished, taking the white with it. The only sound in the room was Potter’s loud breathing. He looked as though someone had slapped him.

             “Tell me, Potter,” Severus said, as though they had all the time in the world, “do you know what curse that was?”

             Potter promptly went back to obstinacy, hardening his eyes and grinding his teeth. “How could I? I never saw it before.”

             “And yet,” Severus said, his voice soft and pleasant, “you chose the right defense. It was a curse based on ice. You chose fire to fight it.”

             “So what?” Potter’s voice had the kind of ringing challenge that Severus frequently met with from students who assumed they were smarter than he was. “Anyone could have done that.”

             “Not anyone,” Severus said. “I know seventh-year students who cannot manage the Fire Shield. I know trained Aurors who would not have been able to process the color of the curse and come to the right conclusions fast enough.” I have faced some of those Aurors on the battlefield. “Instinctive knowledge or not, you have a talent.” He moved forwards until he was mere inches from the boy and Potter had to crane his neck to look up and meet his eyes.

             “I will not see you squander it.”

             The blood drained from Potter’s face. Severus knew why. He had put all the force of his conviction in his voice, because there was more than simple obedience to Albus driving him now. Potter might have the ability to free them from the Dark Lord, with proper training. Severus needed to encourage him to use it and not hide it so that he would survive as well as Potter and Potter’s little friends.

             This had also become a means of conquering Potter’s pride. Severus now knew that it angered the brat to display his magic in front of Severus, though he still did not know exactly why. That was the kind of thing Severus could easily hold over his head. Better, he could use the very alertness that made Potter so capable of defeating threats against him and force him to assist in demonstrations in the classroom and private duels to speed up his training. Severus tasted victory merely thinking of the way Potter would fret, and fume, and complain, and yet end up working with him anyway.

             And finally, though few would know this except students like Draco who possessed a natural talent in Potions, Severus wished to teach those who had gifts. It was the dunderheads who surrounded him, with no application and no ability, that he had less patience for. He had none at all for people who were good at things but didn’t think to work at them to become even better. He had never previously thought that Potter could inhabit that category.

             Now he knew. Now he refused to give the moron any peace—not because of Albus’s orders, but because of his own deepest principles.

             Potter gave him a stare of silent, conflicted hated.

             “Detention over, Potter,” Severus said, and watched in delight as Potter opened his mouth several times to say something, then turned his back and marched out without a word, as if he were an automaton.

             Struggle against me all you like, Potter. You will lose the battle.

 *

             Harry swore softly and pressed his hands against his face as he stood in the corridor outside Snape’s office.

             That could have gone better.

             Stupid reaction times. Stupid determination that wouldn’t hold up. Stupid Snape, who would only torment him more and worse if he knew what Harry knew.

             He paused when thoughts of that secret called up others, and he realized it had been at least a week since he applied his face-concealing charm. “Shite,” he muttered, and started to aim his wand at his face.

             Cold settled on his arms. Harry shivered and glanced doubtfully at Snape’s door. Had he opened it again? Was it his presence Harry was feeling? But no, the door was firmly shut.

             Then he felt a slicing fear that cut into his stomach, and he turned to stare down towards the end of the corridor. Dark, swirling shapes moved there, which could have been the shadows of someone walking away from the Slytherin common room.

             But Harry wasn’t dumb enough to think that, not when he had also felt the fear and the cold and the despair that was trying to numb his mind now.

             Dementors. Dementors got inside the school somehow.

             Harry took off running after the shadows, fiercely lashing his mind to find a happy memory.