Potions and Snitches
Snape and Harry Gen Fanfiction Archive

Author's Chapter Notes:
Draco hears news of Snape
Chapter 22: Trustworthy

1994

 

Draco Malfoy walked towards the door to the parlor. He had heard the Floo sound, and wondered if his father had made it home. The elder Malfoy had been away several days on “business,” the kind that he never went in to much detail, but always ended up the worse for it. And as he walked, the young wizard heard terrible noises coming from the room.

There was a loud crash, followed by thuds and bangs. Hurrying his strides, Draco rushed to the door, but fear suddenly overtook him. Stealthily, the young Slytherin cracked the door open just a smidge so he could look inside.

“I cannot believe it!” Lucius bellowed. “I cannot believe it! After all these years, after everything I’ve done for him, he betrays us, he betrays me!”

Sitting deceptively calm in her chair, Narcissa Malfoy kept her back straight as she sat in her chair watching her husband rave. “Calm down, my dear,” her voice was smooth. “What has happened? Who are you talking about?”

Spinning on his heels, Lucius’s steely eyes burned in rage, and his face contorted into a terrible mask. “SNAPE!” the man bellowed, grabbing a picture that had been sitting on a stand, and sending it crashing to the floor.

On the other side of the door, Draco’s eyes widened in surprise. What was going on? What was his father talking about? How had Professor Snape betrayed his father? Leaning closer, the young Slytherin tried to get a better look of what was going on.

For a moment, Narcissa’s face betrayed her surprise, before she managed to work it back down into a neutral expression once more. “Severus?” she asked, her voice shaded with doubt. “My dear, I cannot believe Severus would deliberately betray you. What-”

But before the rest of her sentence could be uttered, the enraged wizard strode over to his wife and slapped her soundly across the face. With a cry of surprise and pain, the witch instantly grabbed the side of her face, while trying to sit back up, having almost been knocked out of her seat. It was one of the few times Lucius had ever struck her. In the doorway, Draco gasped.

“Don’t believe me?” Lucius growled, beginning to pace. “What did he do?” his cold eyes burned into his wife’s face dispassionately. “He is the spy, Narcissa! The spy that we’ve been looking for, for years! I know he is!”

Instead of answering, the witch smartly straightened herself up and held her tongue. She let her eyes convey her question, if not a bit of her doubt. She knew her husband well enough to see that he did not want her words contradicting his. And although it was proving a bit difficult, Narcissa refused to cry in front of her husband. Lucius enjoyed tears far too much.

“I know he is!” the wizard glared at his wife. “At our meeting several days ago, he released a Mudblood girl that we had captured, and then apparated away to Spinner’s End. He sent everything away before we got there, and despite the injuries he received, he got away!”

Draco’s mouth hung agape as he listened. Snape, the Head of Slytherin, the man that only ever offered little sympathy, if any at all, let a Mudblood go? If the man was a spy for the "Light", like his father claimed, then wouldn’t it have been better for the professor to use his indifference to his advantage? If Snape really was a spy, then why would he have blown his cover over something so small? And why would the Head of Slytherin betray the Death Eaters? Had Dumbledore found out?

“We lost his trail for several days before Wormtail,” Lucius sneered at the name, “found where Harry Potter lived.”

In her seat, Narcissa’s eyes widened in wonder, her blue eyes sparkling like sapphires. In the doorway outside, Draco’s eyes glistened like cold steel at the mention of his rival. And even though Draco hated Potter, he could not squash down his fear that his father had done something bad to the other boy. A small, annoying, part of his mind was afraid that Harry Potter was no more.

“He also discovered that that was where Snape had slithered off to when he healed himself,” the wizard went on, becoming more and more furious as the story went on. Narcissa sat very still, as though she was in a lion’s pen.

“We were unaware if Snape still resided at Potter’s home, but we planned an attack last evening,” Lucius turned his back on his wife, and stared off into the flames in the fireplace. “And do you know what we found?”

The question sent waves of dread through both Narcissa and Draco, as Lucius’s voice was nothing but cold venom. Taking a deep breath, hoping that her voice would not shake, the witch stared at the floor, as if she were a schoolgirl in the Headmaster’s office. “No,” her voice was soft. “What did you find?”

“Nothing!” Lucius crossed the room and leaned in towards his wife threateningly. “The whole bloody house was empty!”

Although a small part of Draco was sorry that his father was in such a foul mood, as it would be taken out of him later, and that his mother had also been on the receiving end of the master wizard’s temper, there was, again, a small part of him that was undeniably glad that Potter had not been there. Unable to crush the feeling, Draco had to admit that he was relieved that Potter was still alive. After all, the younger Malfoy did not want to be a Death Eater, despite how he talked at school, and he needed Potter to stay alive and kill the Dark Lord again. Then everything would get better.

“Nothing?” Narcissa’s panicked reply brought Draco out of his thoughts.

“Nothing,” Lucius’s voice dropped into smoldering anger, just waiting to erupt again. “Snape had gotten everyone out of the house. Somehow he knew what was going to happen!” The student at the door could not help but sympathize as everyone knew that the Potions Master had an uncanny ability to sniff out trouble before it ever began.

“They were all gone without a trace,” Lucius took up pacing again. “But how could Snape have known? The Dark Mark would have stung when the large group of us gathered together, but not enough to concern him,” the elder Malfoy looked deep in thought. “What would have made him assume that we would attack Potter? That we knew where Potter was?”

Looking distinctly paler now than she had at the beginning of the conversation, Narcissa shook her head, long blond locks fell free from her loose bun. “I do not know,” she admitted softly. “But you should have known not to underestimate Severus. He has a great mind, you yourself always said that.”

“I did,” the wizard growled. “But I would never have believed him to be stupid enough to throw everything away like this. I made him what he is! I was the one that paid for his potions mastery. I’m the one that introduced him into the ring of Death Eaters and to the Dark Lord. I supported his release from Azkaban. Why then would he do this?”

“Severus is nothing if not Slytherin, my dear,” the witch said carefully, hoping that her husband would not hit her again. “He must have another motive. Perhaps he was bribed with something bigger?”

“What?” Lucius snorted. “From who? Dumbledore? That old fool doesn’t know anything! He didn’t even know Snape spied on him before the Dark Lord fell! I was told he was the one that prompted Snape’s release from Azkaban in the first place! The old fool didn’t want to lose his Potions Master.”

“Unless you are missing the bigger picture, Lucius,” Narcissa’s eyes sparkled with thought, her mind actively working to uncover the mystery before her. “Have you ever considered that it was Severus that was spying on us from the beginning?”

Both father and son wore identical masks of horror at the idea. But while Draco’s shock slipped slowly into hurt, Lucius’s instantly snapped into rage. “What?” the elder Malfoy hissed.

“There was a spy in the collective in the beginning,” Narcissa pointed out logically. “We thought we had discovered and taken care of him. But do you not remember who it was that had brought Archer to us, declaring him the traitor?”

Eyes widening into still more anger, the wizard flipped over a chair. “Snape!” he bellowed. “It was Snape! It was always Snape!”

“Yes, my dear,” the witch purred, hoping to calm her husband. Draco thought he might get sick. “Consider; the Headmaster released Severus from Azkaban, even from under the charges of being a Death Eater, because he needed a Potions Master? No, not even the Headmaster is so stupid. But the old man released Severus because he was his spy? I think so.”

“They had both played us all for fools!” Lucius irrupted. “Snape had even been willing to go to Azkaban to keep us off his scent! And once that was done, the bastard went right back to spying on us!”

Although his first reaction was disbelief, Draco had to admit that he could actually see Snape being some sort of triple agent. The man was perfect for it, actually. The professor had no family, no real friends or connections. He kept himself detached from just about everything, and he had a wide range of different talents that could be used greatly to his advantage on whichever side he chose to be on.

As a Potions Master, the young wizard knew that his teacher was quite valuable, as the Death Eaters had precious few wizards and witches that could brew what was needed for their attacks. And along with that, with his healing skills, Snape was, or had been, the only trustworthy healers that the Death Eaters could turn to. But with all this aside, as a spy, Snape had, or they had thought, gathered priceless information for them, giving details and reporting on the Headmaster’s activities.

When he had first learned that his professor was a spy from his father, Draco had thought that Snape acted quite recklessly, blatantly favoring his own house, the house that produced most of the dark wizards; not that he minded the favoritism, since the other teachers all seemed to hate Slytherin anymore. And with Snape’s obvious hatred for Harry Potter, Draco had worried that his godfather would be caught. But he had always accredited Snape’s ability to remain undetected due to Slytherin superiority and cunning. Now he realized that it was due to the Headmaster’s controlling the Potions Master.

“Snape must have had orders to pull out,” Lucius rubbed his chin pensively. “But why? What does Dumbledore know? Merlin, what could the old wizard know that would have him call out a spy such as Snape?”

“I do not know, my dear,” Narcissa continued to stare at the floor. “But perhaps Severus-”

And before the witch knew what was happening, Lucius struck her again, on the same side of her face. “I never want to hear that name again!” the wizard roared. “I never want you to say it again, do you understand me?”

Tears pooling in her crystal eyes, Narcissa nodded slowly, blood trickling from her split lip. Draco watched, and had to stop himself from jumping to his mother’s defense. His father was never reasonable when he was angry, and he rarely ever really listened to his son anyway. Biting his lip, and balling up his fists, the young wizard had to fight back his own tears of frustrated anger.

“But if Snape thinks that he’s going to get to relax and pat himself on the back, he’ll be sadly mistaken,” Lucius hissed. “He’s the Head of Slytherin, after all. As soon as the school year starts, he’ll be thrown into a brood of vipers. There are many students there whose family still remains loyal to the Dark Lord. Perhaps one of them will kill the traitorous bastard.” A cruel smile formed on the wizard’s face. “Perhaps even Draco will do it.”

Without much else, the elder Malfoy stormed from the room, supposedly to contact several of the other Death Eaters to warn their children. As soon as she knew it was safe, Narcissa sat up straight again, and brushed the blood from her lip. “You can come in now, Draco,” she called softly, never turning around.

Surprised at being found out, the young wizard took a moment to smooth over his features before he pushed open the door all the way and walked in. He now saw that the room was in worse shape than he had previously thought. His father must have been truly angry if he destroyed everything.

Walking around to kneel next to his mother, Draco looked into the witch’s face. He had never seen his mother in such a state. She looked haggard, and tired. Her hair was falling down and blood was on her light blue dress. The side of her face was swelling and turning black and blue and her lip was swelling as well, with blood beginning to crust over. Tears were streaming from her eyes, and for a minute, she refused to look at him.

“You heard it all?” she asked gently, as though Draco had been the one hurt.

The young Slytherin nodded. “I did.”

Nodding to herself, Narcissa sat up a little bit straighter, even while she sniffled. “You heard what your father said last?”

Images of both Lucius and Snape flashed in Draco’s mind, and he found he could not love or respect either at the moment. Snape, the man that the young wizard had always thought of as a mentor, a second father, betrayed his family, and had turned out to have been a liar and a sneak. And the boy’s father was nothing but a murderous bully that would kill anyone and anything just to get what he wanted, as he would abuse his wife. For just a moment, Draco wished he could kill them both.

“Yes,” he responded tightly.

“Draco, look at me,” his mother urged, and at last, the boy did. “Do not kill Severus,” she said softly.

“But he-” Draco started off in a passionate argument.

“Draco,” his mother’s voice quivered, causing him to stop. “If you have any of me in you, then you will see the wisdom in keeping your godfather alive.”

With that, the witch, stood up, her son along with her, before she looked him in the eyes. Sparks of understanding shot through the boy at his mother’s cold icy stare, before she squeezed his hand and walked out of the room. Her son watched her go.

Looking about the wreckage of the room, Draco picked up the picture that his father had so singled out to destroy in his second rage. Looking at it, the young wizard realized that it was a picture of himself and Snape. They both looked a bit haggard, no doubt from being thrown to the ground so violently, but when the two figures looked up at Draco, the younger version of the boy waved excitedly, while the professor merely inclined his head.

Sitting down heavily into the chair that his mother had sat in only a moment before, Draco stared at the picture for a long while, tears gather in his eyes. He recalled something the professor had told him on more than one occasion:

“Be careful of those around you, Draco. They will come before you cheerfully because you are rich, or because they want something from you. Those that you trust the most may turn out to betray you, and those that you confide in may tell all your secrets. Be careful who you trust, because one day, you might just find out that they were not as trustworthy as you thought.”

With tears bursting free from his eyes, Draco threw the picture into the fire.

Chapter End Notes:
Tada! More characters that will come back later to bite everyone in the butt! Er, I mean, to enhance and enrich the story...yeah...

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