Potions and Snitches
Snape and Harry Gen Fanfiction Archive

Author's Chapter Notes:
In case it wasn't obvious, this chapter will give Draco's perspective on the flood, so it will go back in time a bit to start.

Disclaimer: This chapter was written by French_Charlotte and reviewed by me for content and characterization.
Malfoys' Interlude: A Malfoy Perspective

Wednesday, 1st October, 1997

"You're wrong. Ahmes only used positive rational unit fractions. Two-thirds can't be in the two-n table."

Calling Hermione Granger wrong while trying to work the impossible clasp on her bra was a dangerous game, but Draco was never one to play on the safe side of things.

The witch jerked her head a little back and forth, but didn't stop his hands, her body pressed against his. "You're wrong, Draco. Two-thirds is the single exception, along with integers. The algorithm is - most of the time - ignored when n is a prime. That's why you got that question wrong on last week's exam."

The clasp gave but Draco didn't feel nearly as triumphant as he should've, not when he was getting schooled by his girlfriend on advanced arithmancy. He pulled back a little, still keeping her in his arms, to level a look at her properly. Her Gryffindor red bed linens mocked him. "Doesn't matter. The equation reads linearly - variable chi, solve for chi, and express chi. Prime number or not, it's superfluous to the multiplicants."

She smirked, like she knew something he didn't, and leaned forward to pepper a string of kisses along the ridge of his jaw. "It's not cosmetic to the Diophantine approximation. We're dealing with Rhind, not Golenishchev."

"Well, fuck me." He sighed. "They're both chavs."

She gave a breathy chuckle at his low-key admit to defeat and pushed him back against the bed, diving in for her kill. So she was right. He messed up one of the foundational concepts of ancient Egyptian arithmancy. Despite a solid grasp on linear equations and proceeding to work out the problem with lauding success, his ignorance to the basic rule set his work on fire and ruined what should've been a sterling exam. He couldn't even be fully mad; getting academically corrected by his brilliant witch half-naked checked off a few of his fantasies.

The two hours between their last class of the day and dinner was time they spent together. And when conversation turned dry and their yearning for one another took over, not even arithmancy calculations could distract them any longer. In the aftermath of it all, laying with each other in her vomit-inducing Gryffindor bed with its shoddy gold trim, Draco reflected back on the past few weeks. His school marks, despite the one wrong question on his arithmancy exam, were as strong as ever, he was making progress with Dr Cobb, and his cat lessons with Crookshanks continued to improve. There were bumps and bruises, awkwardness along the way, but all in all, he was fairly happy with his Hogwarts days, all things considered.

Then again, the gorgeous witch currently tracing imaginary circles on his arm might've swayed his opinion. She was getting dangerously close to the ugly mark staining his forearm, her fingers moving aimlessly as they simply existed with one another.

"I can bring some dinner back here for us, if you'd like," Draco offered, turning over on his side and subtly pulling his arm from her. He didn't need her small, delicate fingers getting tarnished by touching the Mark. "It's the closest that I can do to taking you out for a proper meal until a Hogsmeade weekend comes up."

Hermione smiled a little. "Or you can sit with us."

A groan threatened to rumble up his throat, but he stopped it at the last moment. "You can sit with us. I'm sure you and Hala would get along brilliantly."

Meals would forever be a sore point. Their houses sat on complete opposite sides of the Great Hall, sandwiching Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, as if the sea between them could make their shared animosity any lesser. But a timeless rivalry didn't stop existing simply because two star crossed lovers wanted it too - rivalries weren't always malevolent and cruel. They served a greater purpose, bolstered House pride and drove students to do their best in hopes of outshining the other. Maybe that was why Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw fell to the bylines; they lacked that fire under them, the grit to outperform another.

But that rivalry was a foe to Hermione and Draco. Or more so the awkwardness that continued to persevere between Draco and Harry. In truth, the Slytherin felt confident that if Harry grew bold enough to admit that Draco's kidnapping was to save another Gryffindor, the other Lions would grudgingly accept him. Befriend and like him? Not likely. But acceptance didn't mean liking someone. And all he needed was acceptance and the surety that none of them would slip some poison into his food.

Poison. He thought back to the shipping manifest Harry showed him the day before, the one with the French term for Belladonna. Why would Harry have that in his possession? What was he playing at? He made a mental note to finally gather his wits and reach out to Harry in the near future to follow up on the manifest. Despite the inelegance between them, he felt a strange obligation to steer the good-to-do Gryffindor in the murky, violent waters of dark herbs and objects, and belladonna was without a doubt one of the darker ones.

"I think that girl, Hala, likes you," Hermione teased, sidestepping the awkward conversation of their lack of ability to share a meal with one another. She was good like that, knowing how to salvage their time together when a tense subject began to trickle in. Which was ironic because she could also be the antagonist to creating strife when her stubbornness and need to be right showed. "You have a little admirer. Should I be jealous?"

"If it means I get to shag you more often, then yes, absolutely." The smack that he was waiting for didn't disappoint. "But honestly, no. I'm her only friend, if you can even call me that. It's not like we take strolls together between classes or get chummy about quidditch together."

The flirtiness in Hermione dried up a little, replaced with contemplation and question. "Do you really believe it? That she sees death?"

It was a question Draco inwardly asked himself every time Hala looked at him, staring with her unfocused, distant look. What did she see? Did he really want to know? Would it make his moments of bliss with Hermione feel shorter, lesser, like he couldn't get enough if he knew his days were limited? He already knew his days were numbered; everyone's were and if he learned anything in the past year, it was not to waste a single second, never let a moment pass when you could seize it because you might not get another chance.

Whenever he looked at Hermione, a marriage proposal danced on the tip of his tongue. He was a hypocrite to his own mantra, scared of her potential rejection and the ruining it'd do to their relationship.

Reluctantly pushing himself up from the bed, Draco focused on her question and shoved that fear to the back of his mind, where it belonged. "I believe she sees something. I asked her once before about it, and she said that what she sees doesn't really matter. That our true futures are hidden in rooms, locked by our choices, and she's standing in the corridor able to see the closed doors but nothing more. A bit esoteric for my taste but that's a bloody seer for you."

Registering their need to get dressed and changed for dinner, Hermione mirrored his actions, slipping out of the bed with all the grace she could in her barren state and began collecting their clothes banished to various nooks and crannies. "Has she said anything about you? Or… or anyone else?"

Catching his boxers tossed to him, the young wizard quietly slipped them on, studying her conflicted expression. She was never good with concealing her emotions, so expressive and outward with them. If he did propose, he'd need to teach her how to suppress her true feelings when around certain Pureblood circles, lest she wanted to have them used against her. "Just ask what you want to actually know."

Dressing in her skirt and top, Hermione sighed and sat on the edge of the bed. "It's Harry," she admitted, cringing preemptively at how he would react to the other wizard being brought up. "I'm just… worried, is all. I thought maybe Hala would have some kind of… idea… on his illness."

Draco arched a brow up. "I thought divination was 'whoolly'."

The Gryffindor rolled her eyes at her own words being used against her. "It is whoolly. It's not a science - and don't even think of arguing against that, I know you agree with me. It's… it's not exact and there's no process for it." She chewed her bottom lip. "But that doesn't mean it's all wrong. Yes, it is rubbish but not complete rubbish."

It's wrong but not completely wrong. Draco stared at her. Witches were impossible to rationalize with when they grasped onto irrational ideas.

"Let's pretend that I'm following your madness," he half-joked as he slung his tie around his neck, tucking it into his collar and began to criss-cross it perfectly without having to see what he was doing. Six years of boarding school would do that to a person. "I don't think Hala's ever actually met Harry. She's a first year, and as far as I'm aware, he's got no classes with her. And if by some coincidence she has met him, she hasn't told me. This might shock a Gryffindor but us Slytherins don't sit around conspiring about Harry. In fact, for a while I tried to pretend he wasn't even at the school but you lot made that pretty impossible."

The attempt of levity wasn't even registered by the witch, who also busied herself with the final touches of her uniform. "You'd tell me, though, right? If Hala did say anything about Harry?"

Now that gave Draco a pause. A significant, lengthy pause. In that pause, he sliced and diluted the question, exploring the potential avenues his answer could take him. Fealty to his girlfriend or loyalty to a new friend, a fellow Slytherin, another Pureblood? And what about Harry? Didn't the other wizard deserve privacy for own future? Did his girlfriend deserve to be worried with those potential 'what if's?

He swallowed the lump in his throat at the only answer that came back to his musings. "No, I wouldn't tell you," he quietly answered back with all the honesty in his being, holding her stare and waiting for the fall out that'd come. "One prophecy is enough."

She crossed the gap between them and framed both hands against the sides of his face. And then smiled, relieved. "Thank you."

It was enough to almost convince Draco to sit with her at dinner. Almost. But when they entered the Great Hall, he saw Hala sitting alone at the very end of the table in what had become his new spot, the closest Slytherin a solid half meter away from her, tucked so far away that they looked uncomfortable on the bench. Draco gently drew Hermione in, briskly hugging her and giving a quick kiss to her lips, but if he knew what would happen in the coming hours, he would've held onto her forever. Would've said what he wanted to say. Would've asked her to marry him right there. Would've done many things had he known.

Hala was talkative during dinner, a striking difference from her normally reclusive demeanor. She spoke of Jordan, about her family's town of Aqaba and the turquoise warm waters and how the sands would gleam like diamonds during sunset. She told him the difference between the shimmering Red Sea, teeming with thriving forests of corals and tropical fish, compared to the churning, cold waters around Cromwell. The current in Cromwell was more vicious and unforgiving, while Aqaba's waters were like swimming in a bathtub. Cromwell, she told him, made her into a strong swimmer.

And while Draco listened and occasionally grunted a noncommittal answer, he didn't share in her love for the sport and really had nothing to offer to the conversation. Jordan? He'd never been, but he could reflect on his few holidays to Egypt and Israel. But his lack of flair for swimming didn't sour Hala's own admiration for the hobby, and she continued on as if he was as excited about it as she was.

Later, he would look back at the conversation and curse himself for not seeing her subtle attempt to tell him what was potentially in the cards. He never asked her about the futures she saw, and she never wanted to outwardly tell him; their friendship was never built around her abilities or his influence as a Malfoy, something novel to both of them. And yet, he completely missed the signs she was trying to give him.

After dinner, Draco and Hala retired back to the Common Room to kick off the start of their mentorship, study time. Picking a spot nearest the windows, he dragged the two armchairs to face one another and plopped down in one, spreading his arithmancy book across his legs, intent on researching Hermione's correction. The water cast an eerie, subdued emerald glow into the room, the lake turning in for its dormant state as night descended. The lake had a strange calming effect on the Malfoy heir; during boyhood, he tried to imagine what it would look like based on his parents' description of their Hogwarts years, and created all kinds of images and scenes. He thought he'd see the merpeople a lot more often then he did, which was never, and would come to consider the giant squid as a House pet, which was more accurate.

As much as Draco put up a public protest over Snape's mandated study hour, he actually enjoyed it. If left to his own devices, his time in the Common Room would've been kept to an absolute minimum; he had a private room to study in or, ideally, Hermione's. In the past, he used to plop on the leather couch with an eager flock of Slytherins and do his studying while maintaining his throne. Those days were long gone.

Or maybe not exactly gone, but different.

He thought the Slytherins all hated him with burning malice and a drive for his murder, having been instrumental to Voldemort's demise in a sort of backhanded way. Alternatively - and lesser known - he was also crucial to keeping the Dark wizard alive for a few months, so his usefulness could be argued for either party, if they really wanted to focus on details. But the Slytherins still looked at him, often under the guise of hidden agendas and not-so-secret glances, for guidance. Harper tried to assume everything Draco built up, thinking his own Purebloodedness and continued belief in expired ideals would build him a crown.

All it built him was a crown of rust, flaking and cracking and filled with false promises. Harper was as ambitious as any Slytherin ought to be, but he didn't have the resources or cunning to get anywhere near those lofty dreams.

And so Draco had focused on rebuilding what he thought was lost. He needed new knights and bishops, people who could fill out his ranks as associates and bolster his own strength where he needed it. Hermione, to an extent, was helping in that regard. Ronald Weasely and him struck a neutral armistice, enough to exist and begin developing a new acquaintanceship. Lavender Brown, for all of her ditziness, was the first person to know of any gossip happening in the school and even beyond the castle walls. She was a herald without even knowing it, and spilled her secrets to their small group excitedly. Anthony Goldstein had taken Draco's olive branch to discuss arithmancy, and through it he learned Goldstein's family were heavily involved in international banking.

Blaise and him were still working on figuring out where they stood and how to return to a friendship when so much of the landscape had changed. Crabbe and Goyle, interestingly enough, were quiet and reclusive, keeping to themselves but always watching intently when Draco and Blaise talked, as if waiting for the signal that they could return to Draco's sides. But they never would again. Even after Draco orchestrated a new brotherhood and rebuilt what had been torn asunder, never would those two return to where they were. That sun had set, that reign was over. A new one was in order.

As Draco helped Hala on her transfiguration homework, he considered her. In centuries past, kings and emperors always kept seers and witches in their court, especially seers and those with the gift of prophecy. Some would say the seers played their own game with their rulers, them being the ones in true power. Men believe they're in control when they're the ones making decisions, but rarely do they ever question who presented the choices.

Keeping that in mind, Draco expected nothing from Hala but sensed something deeper in her that appealed to him. It was a light that glowed among the darkness, something he couldn't explain but knew he had to figure out. Despite all of her loyalty to him, how she eagerly awaited him at meals and looked sincerely excited when he sat down beside her, there was a darkness in her that put him on edge. There was only one other person who made him feel the same way, and that dark wizard was long dead.

But he liked Hala, despite all of that. She was a victim of circumstance, just like he was, and he hoped that whatever demons danced inside her could be calmed before she'd be killed.

"You're very good with transfiguration," the young witch mumbled as she scratched her quill against a page in her book, scribbling down some notes. "I don't think I'll get good marks this year in it."

Transfiguration came so second nature to Draco he wasn't sure what advice to give her. "If Neville Longbottom can manage to pass the class, I'm sure you'll be fine. McGonagall isn't impossible to learn from, regardless how much she favors the Gryffindors. Just means you have to work harder."

A faint smile crossed her face, resolved and determined. "Thank you for being my friend, Draco." She outstretched her hand across the table towards him, quill still within her small fingers as if acting like she wanted to give it to him.

Brows furrowing together in confusion, Draco reached across with the intention of taking what he assumed to be the offered quill. But he was wrong. She dropped the writing utensil moments before his fingers met it and suddenly grabbed his hand.

He never heard the quill hit the ground before hell broke loose. Before the water reached them.


Draco dreamed of water. And pain. And screaming students. And Snape's worried face while Hala swam through an impossible current. He dreamed of Harry's emotive expression, so filled with thoughts and feelings, so conflicted but real. He dreamed of the dungeons, once a haven of safety that'd become a watery tomb.

The stiffness of the bed linens was what woke Draco; not the feeling of the eyes on him or the small, familiar fingers entwined around his. He knew Hermione liked to watch him sleep, initially a strange hobby that became endearingly quaint. Did they fall asleep after intimacy? Was it almost the dinner hour? What day was it even?

He could've let himself get caught up in that assumption, the possibility that the past few hellish hours never happened. The dreams - or memories - were clouded with age and frayed on the periphery with fuzziness, much like a dream or a drunk-induced haze. But that didn't explain the stiff bed linens, tough like wood and unyielding like their matron who oversaw the hospital wing.

Because that was exactly where he knew the bed linens were found. He sat on them enough times when counting and inventorying potions during his hours spent working in the hospital wing, or the few times he caught a nap on a bed in the corner between classes. He knew the starchy fabric from an observer's viewpoint, knew the roughness of their embrace and how much he'd hate to actually be laying in one.

The visions weren't a dream - they were memories, fuzzied by a head injury if the constant throbbing behind his eyes was any indication.

Opening his eyes, Draco confirmed that he was, in fact, tucked into a slender bed, redressed from his soggy uniform with a pair of hospital-grade pyjamas that rivaled the linen's rigidity. They were the scratchy, arthritic type that creased before it wrinkled. Cheap material meant to be cut and thrown away if an emergency demanded it. On a patient, it made sense, but on him, he didn't like them one bit.

"Hey!" A soft voice was suddenly at his side, the abruptness of it further confirming to the Slytherin that his mind and wits were as jostled as the rest of his body. "How are you feeling? Are you in any pain?"

Draco shook his head and turned to look at Hermione. The entire world shifted like it wasn't supposed to. "How is everyone? Have I been asleep this whole time? What happened?"

Leaning close near his bedside, still gripping his hand, the witch took a shaky, quivering breath. Her eyes were damp and her cheeks glistened under the very dim lighting. There wasn't a moon that night. Or if there was one, it abandoned them as soon as hope did. "You've been kind of between being awake and asleep. I got here as soon as I could, about an hour ago."

The healer in him made him begin roaming his hands over his body, inspecting the shattered collarbone he knew he had before. It was perfect now, his arm no longer hanging at a strange, languid angle. The constant throb throb throb in his head couldn't be helped. Not by magic healing. He made a mental note to investigate a muggle medicine for head injuries and see the efficacy of transitioning it to the wizarding world.

Draco looked up at her then. "How is everyone?" He repeated the unanswered question.

She shook her head and looked down, failing at holding back a volley of tears that fell from her eyes. "I don't know. They-they just said that they were getting a full headcount. Some were taken to St Mungos but-but they didn't tell us - Anthony and me, I mean - anything else. I don't know if anyone…"

She couldn't finish the sentence and for that Draco was thankful. He wasn't ready to face the potential fatalities from the accident, if it could even be called that.

"Hala saved you," Hermione blurted out, looking up and gripping his hand tighter. "She saved a lot of people but you were the first. Did she know?"

Falling back on the woefully thin pillows with a haggard sigh, Draco shook his head, though immediately regretted the action. The world lurched again and he closed his eyes to wait the spinning sensation out. At Hermione's question, he thought back to the moments before the window directly beside them broke, when the water rushed in so fast and fierce that it swept them both up in its fury. If Hala didn't grab his hand, if she wasn't a good swimmer, he could've been taken out with the current. "I'm not sure. Maybe," he half-lied because he wasn't sure what Hala saw. "It's… rather hard to think right now. Or remember things. What rubbish did Pomfrey give me?"

Hermione half-snorted, half-sobbed. "The potion that you demanded. You don't remember?"

He cracked open an eye. "I demanded it? Why in the bloody hell would she listen to me?"

"She said you weren't wrong but the mix of ingredients was a bit unique to her. Concentrated ginkgo, steeped willow bark, and Basan egg yolk. That last one really threw her."

As it should've. The fact that he added a fire-breathing japanese chicken egg known for its hallucinogenic properties intrigued even him. But it must've done something to leave him with only an omnipresent drum in his head, harmoniously finding his heart's steady cadence, and still allowing him to have his wits about him. Things were certainly 'off'; his thoughts were sluggish and all managed to go from his mind straight to his tongue and out his mouth. But all in all, he felt more invigorated than he ought to have, restless even. He made another mental note to bring that unique synergy blend to the lab for further investigating.

"I can't believe something like this happened," he began without really realizing he was talking, speaking from a fount of words he didn't know existed. The veil he always strained his words through to make sure they were clear of emotion or weakness was gone. There was a mental lag of a few seconds when he was aghast at his own candidness. "Six years I've lived down there and not even so much as a crack on those windows. So what? I start dating you and now I'm getting all of your cracked luck and brushes with death? You lot are cursed, you know that."

The joke had its intended effect, making her smile through her tears. "I'd hit you if you weren't in a hospital bed."

"You can take a pass on it and hit me tomorrow, because I intend on getting out of here then. I want to figure out what happened and… Merlin, my room is probably in shambles," Draco groaned against his pillows. The partitions around him were mostly quiet save for soft whispers from the other patients. "How much did the dungeons flood?"

The Gryffindor gently rolled a shoulder in a light shrug. "I don't know anything, Draco. Just that students were rescued and a headcount is getting underway with the more severe ones transported out. I-I think Dumbledore must've gotten the flooding under control. He would've-"

"Don't break into song about him," Draco icily cut her off. "With how much he hates all of us, me especially, I wouldn't be surprised if he was the one to do it. Finally getting his revenge on us all, I bet. Only surprised that it took him this long to finally-"

"He would never!" Hermione immediately countered, her voice dangerous and low. "And-and he doesn't hate you. Please, Draco, just rest. No one did anything - it was an accident. The windows are old and maybe the squid hit it. Or the merpeople. They were rather aggressive with the boats at the start of term. Bumped one so hard a poor first year nearly fell out. Maybe something's gotten into them."

He could believe that if the merpeople had been actually active around their windows in the past month. But like always, they rarely visited the Slytherins, preferring to keep to themselves in the inky depths. No, Draco was sitting by the windows seconds before it shattered. There was nothing out there save for an impending wall of water iching to get in. But given the small fingers desperately gripping his, and the russet eyes still damp with emotion, and her entire body both exhausted and energized from worry, he didn't call her bluff. It was a safe enough fantasy for them both to believe, no matter how unrealistic it was.

The craziest thing about a head injury was time. Draco had no concept of it. He kept forgetting if it was morning or night, and one glance out the dark windows told him it definitely wasn't during the day. He lost track of how long he talked to Hermione, mostly about happy things to keep their minds off the accident and his close call with death. It was still there though, the threat, lingering on the edge of their sentences, quivering their voices with fear, and making their gazes at one another more smoldering and infatuated. They talked about the Hallowe'en Feast and their favorite confections - they weren't dating last year when the feast rolled around - and debated whether the bubbling butterscotch brownie or pixie wing dust cake was better. And when they stumbled on the tense topic of where they'd sit during the festival, they both made the plan to ask Anthony Goldstein if he'd mind their company at the Ravenclaw table. Secretly, Draco wished things would improve by then to at least allow one of them to sit at the others table, ideally Draco with the Gryffindors because he couldn't imagine there being a scenario that the Slytherins would be friendly with the Muggleborn know-it-all.

They could've been talking for ten minutes or three hours; Draco wasn't even sure. But time stopped existing the moment a tall wizard with snow-white hair identical to his own stepped past the partition and into his homey little 'room'. Dressed in an exquisite slate mulberry silk brocade robe, tailored with zari silver threading valued at a professor's annual salary alone, Lucius Malfoy cut an imposing figure. Despite the midnight hour, the wizard looked every bit regal, commanding, and in control, and to see him there, in a hospital wing surrounded by injured children, made Draco nearly succumb to his encroaching fatigue.

He expected parents to be called, to show up and worry about their children who were nearly drowned in their dorms. But his father? He didn't expect it. He didn't anticipate it because that would've just meant getting his hopes up when he didn't want to even acknowledge wanting his father there in the first place.

But there he was in all his glory, immaculately kept like he wasn't woken from a restful sleep to rush to the school. And Draco almost believed that if he didn't see the strange, unfamiliar worry in the patriarch's mercurial eyes.

"Draco."

He said it with a sigh of relief. Like he didn't expect to find his son there. Like he didn't expect him to be alive. And Draco had his own moment of relief, elated beyond elated that his once distant parent showed, but confused on what his presence meant. It shifted things, their dynamic and expectations, for an heir couldn't persevere and live on if he didn't possess steeled nerves and pillared legs to stand on his own.

Hermione tensed and immediately stood up. "Oh! Mr Malfoy…" Her mouth opened and closed a few times. "I can leave...I didn't know- I thought that- The parents were called hours ago that I didn't think-"

Raising a ringed hand, the older wizard gestured for the young witch to calm herself. It was impressive how one simple gesture of the wrist could drain the tension that began to pool around them. "Your presence here is of no ill-consequence, Miss Granger. On the contrary, I believe it is me that ought to be apologizing for the interruption."

The witch blinked once, disarmed by the response that she expected to be full of corrosion. Her eyes swept between father and son, still registering the churny air between the three of them, built up from their tumultuous history sparked full of acrity and kindling of relationships both good and evil, and quickly nodded as if coming to terms with something. A smile crossed her small lips. Kissable lips, in Draco's opinion.

In the end, the young Gryffindor excused herself, the lone lion slipping free from the pit of snakes, and left after giving a chaste, loving kiss to her boyfriend. Both Malfoys eyed the area that she once occupied, her presence so full and profound that the open space continued to feel filled.

"I'm going to marry her." Draco wasn't sure if it was the concussion talking or his brush with death that urged him to blurt that out.

Lucius hooked a sculpted brow up, turning to regard his bed-bound son with a tucked in expression. But there was something in his silvery eyes, something beyond the conniving and conspiring, slipped between the alcoves of his inner corridors to spin and lurch in its unfamiliar surroundings. Because 'fear' and 'concern' were unfamiliar to the older Slytherin. "Well, I don't suggest you marry her from your hospital bed. That would make for a poor ceremony, and your mother would have a fit over how it'd look for the society papers."

The teen blinked a few times, trying to clear the omnipresent cobwebs from his vision and thoughts. He wondered what he hoped to gain from admitting his intentions with Hermione, if he wanted to hear his father's old ways and feel like he should fight for her. Maybe he wanted to see the old Lucius Malfoy to ground him when everything was just washed away by a flood. And with everything the flood swept up, he wondered if it had washed away his sins, or if his stains simply ran too deep.

The silence after his father spoke must've been longer than Draco realized, for the older wizard approached him and balanced his fingertips on the edge of the bed, the closest he'd get to actually hugging his injured son. "The healers say you'll make a fast recovery," Lucius nodded slowly. "Fast enough that my insistence to relocate you to St Mungos was deemed superfluous. How do you feel?"

"Like I just got half-drowned by an entire lake. How else should I feel?"

Lucius watched him carefully for a few seconds, physically wrangling with his forming words and thoughts. "I suppose you're lucid enough to refuse coming home then? For your safety, of course. I don't surmise you need reminding that it was you who cited safety as your chief concern with returning to school."

A chill danced down Draco's spine. No, he didn't want to leave. Not anymore. Not when life was becoming compliant. "It was an accident," he countered. "And what kind of message would that send to any enemies that we're easily scared?"

"Fear is a useful friend, Draco. It teaches you to pick your battles."

"Precisely. And this is one that isn't worth running from." The teen shoved himself up on his pillows, growing more annoyed with his parent's presence than finding any kind of solace from it. He wasn't interested in exchanging rhetoric and diplomatic blows with his father; he wanted sleep and rest and to get back to rebuilding his life. "It was a bloody accident, father. Those windows are three days younger than dirt. And even if it wasn't an accident, I'm not leaving. I didn't work my arse off this past month to get this close to the healer training only to turn spineless when the first threat - not that I'm saying it's a threat - comes my way."

A small smile spread on Lucius's face. "I expected as much. As far as it being a threat… well, that's partially why I'm here. After checking in on you, I'll be speaking with Dumbledore directly to offer a sizable donation, galleons and labor, to repair and reinforce the Common Room."

Draco wasn't sure what he was supposed to feel with the news. And if he wasn't injured with a concussion - the second head injury in less than a year - he would've noticed the modest sizzle in the air around them, signifying his father had set up a silencing bubble.

There was a defining moment in all children's lives, a horrifying moment when they realized their parents weren't invisible heroes, when they learned their mothers cried as much as them behind closed doors and their fathers were good at hiding how scared they were when checking for intruders. When they learned the limitations of their parents and how, in the process of learning, their childhood was stolen from them. It eroded the sanctity of whimsical childhood and left behind an exposed young adult, tempered by bitterness and scared at everything they were left to face on their own.

Draco had thought he experienced that when he began Hogwarts and inched into his teenage years. The summer between third and fourth year consisted of him feeling like he knew everything his father did, eager for his own chance to prove himself. He thought he had his father figured out, all talk and little to show for it. He thought his father had once been a paragon of perfection among the Death Eaters but the sun had long set on his glory days and would soon rise for himself.

He'd been wrong.

And as he watched his father stand beside his hospital bed, already elbows-deep in orchestrating and pulling strings to set a stage with his players, Draco wondered when that horrifying moment would actually come. Because so far, Lucius Malfoy was beginning to prove that his strength only really emerged when he was pushed and shoved out of his comfort level. During the Battle of Malfoy Manor, he'd killed a man who harmed his son and now through clandestine efforts, continued to pour resources into his family.

He wondered the extent of his father's reach, his limitations, where he'd hit his wall and prove unable to follow through. Maybe those limitations and boundaries existed before his short stint in Azkaban. And maybe, like everything else Azkaban stolen, it'd taken Lucius Malfoy's limitations and boundaries and left him more unpredictable and sharp than before.


Lucius had fantastic memories in the Slytherin common room. They were some of his favorites before he got married and celebrated the birth of his son, those memories framed in gold and the best he'd ever experienced. But during boyhood, when he still feared Abraxas Malfoy and yearned to fill his father's expectations, he couldn't imagine a better place than the dungeon common room meters beneath the lake's choppy surface.

Slowly walking through the water-logged room, he took his time inspecting everything he could. The overturned furniture, the kelp strangling the bookshelves, the stench of rotting fish and stagnant water, the slime that covered the rocks and was primed to birth mold and mildew. To say the Slytherin common room was wrecked would be an understatement. It was a disaster.

After checking on Draco and chatting with him until the boy fell asleep, Lucius had kept his word and sought out an audience with Hogwarts' esteemed headmaster. Their history was riddled with holes, filled in with derision, and washed over with a mutual neutrality blanketed by shared goals. Goals with different paths and intentions, but truly the same at the end of the day. For all of Dumbledore's "Gryffindor pride", he was the epitome of ambitions. Becoming headmaster and a renowned wizard wasn't an accident that simply fell into his lap. Convenient how so many forgot that.

The conversation with Dumbledore had gone alarmingly well. The headmaster, exhausted and drained but willing to speak with a student's parent, had listened to Lucius's offer to pay for all the Slytherin repairs and hire on his own renovation team to complete the project in half the projected time. Instead of the Slytherins being displaced for two weeks, they'd only have to stomach a week of temporary lodging in the Great Hall. It was a generous offer, a blank cheque without any known stipulations attached. To Dumbledore's face, Lucius played the card of an overly concerned parent only looking out for his heir's best, as clearly the headmaster's 'best' almost got his son drowned.

Dumbledore had been placed in a precarious situation. The House most disjointed from his favor, at least to the public eye, had almost been killed. To the public, as well as the Governors, rumors were undoubtedly going to be festering aplenty. To accept the generous donation from the Malfoys, one of the very Slytherin families hurt by the flood, sent a silencing spear into the rumors.

Lucius's team would arrive at dawn to begin the work.

Humming a little to himself, the Malfoy patriarch eyed the framed portrait on the wall, the painted Old Man with his crusty cabin hugging the sea's edge. If one looked hard enough, they wouldn't find the old man in the portrait. He'd ran when the lake flooded. And in the duplicate portrait at the Hogsmeade safehouse, Lucius's solicitor had learned what happened before the school even contacted the parents. And that was why Lucius was ready for the firecall, worried and already dressed, prepared to leave. Narcissa had looked worried for a second, a flicker of her previous self hidden in the emaciated shell left behind. But that flicker, much like a flame, died out with a single breath, and she insisted Lucius go to the school alone only after they heard that Draco was recovering just fine.

The spying portrait had been a fantastic idea. So fantastic that Lucius had a dozen more he intended on putting up. If someone was trying to harm his child, he was determined to find out who. Even if that person was one he called a friend.

Chapter End Notes:
Coming Up Next: Aftermath

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