Darling

"Draco."

The voice was firm, as was the stiff smack that followed it. Draco whined thinly as he wrested his eyes open.

And then drew his brows together. "Father? What happened?"

His father didn't look pleased. "Perhaps you wouldn't mind answering me that same question," he murmured dangerously. "Or if that's too difficult, try, 'Darling Draco, my only son, why do you insist on embarrassing this family time and time again with your spineless, weak-willed lack of composure?'" He smiled sweetly.

Draco frowned, incensed by his father's casual use of the word his mother had already soured for him. "I've embarrassed us? I was sixteen when I managed to get that Muggle-loving headmaster killed, just as I was asked to. What have you done?"

Lucius narrowed his eyes and a thrill of fear lit up in Draco's stomach. He sat up in his bed, to gain a sense of power he knew he didn't have. He continued, suddenly feeling foolhardy and suicidally giddy - much like a Gryffindor must often feel, his backbrain mused cheerfully. "Got yourself locked up because you couldn't handle a whelp who only just learned magic exists six years ago, that's what! You left us alone to clean up your mess, and I bet you were glad to have done! You got to sit in your safe little cell, hoping I could fix everything before you got back and had to try to do it yourself! Before you had to face the punishment for having failed!" The longer his ill-advised tirade went on, the faster his heart pounded. His father's face grew darker with anger at every venomous word, but still his mouth flapped rebelliously on. "But you aren't getting punished. Everyone knows he's trying to kill me because of you. He thinks it'll punish you, but he doesn't know you the way I do, Father. Look what you've gotten us involved in! Look what you've made me do-!"

The smack rang out in the room in the ensuing silence it had caused. Draco was still turned from it moments later, frozen in surprise and somewhat afraid to move again, lest Lucius go completely mad. Hadn't he only just the day before been wondering whether this man had drugged him? Hadn't he earlier that day sensed the sort of undirected, troubling danger that his Aunt Bella wore like a perfume coming off his father? Stupid, stupid, and now-

Lucius massaged his knuckles, standing with his head cocked and watching Draco with the same sort of sneering consideration Draco had seen on him when dealing with a particularly troublesome house elf. Draco looked up at him askance, fear warring with the flush of anger building in his chest. He wasn't a child any more. He didn't have to stand for this. But the anger just wasn't strong enough, not with his father standing over him, looking so cool and composed and tall and casual about it all. He managed to move, slowly, putting his hand to his cheek and testing the inside of his mouth with his tongue.

His father sighed dramatically. "Oh son," he said, his voice honeyed. He widened his eyes in what he probably thought was a passable imitation of Draco when he was angry. "Look what you've made me do." And then he turned on his heel and left, closing Draco's bedroom door behind him.

It was a long while before Draco finally decided to go prod at his face in the mirror in his private lavatory. He stripped and decided to make a bath of it after assuring himself that nothing was bruised or swollen. His father had always had a firm hand, if rarely employed, but Azkaban had clearly affected him after all, had either given him strength or leeched away whatever restraint had once kept his anger in check. The inside of Draco's cheek had only just stopped bleeding by the time the bath was drawn.

He was ten minutes into numbly sitting in the hot water before he had his minor breakdown. Even as he fumed and cursed the man who'd raised him, he felt the mortifying sting of tears pricking his eyes. He leaned his head back and sank into the warmth of the over-sized antique clawfoot tub and spent another fifteen minutes rehearsing what he should have said back to his father, massaging his jaw and generally feeling sorry for himself, morbidly replaying the events of the night over and over in his mind's eye in case he could somehow justify things.

She's crying, calling for help. Snape turns away. Draco is torn between staring in shock and turning away in guilt for having put her there. The Dark Lord intones something ominous that's now fuzzed out by Draco's disinterest and resulting neglectful memory. Because she's just hanging there, suspended over dinner. And Draco can't eat. He can barely consider speaking --

She's crying, calling for help. Snape just sits there, because he doesn't care. But he didn't have to look her son in the eye. Draco is torn between looking away in denial and forcing himself to confront his actions, his future, the future his father has chosen for him, the future he really wants, deep down, or else he'd say something. If all he wanted was to keep his mother safe and not be killed, he'd have rushed to take his offer, back then --

She's crying, calling for help. He can't look at her, can't look at Snape, can't look away from her, can't even breathe. He doesn't remember when the Dark Lord took his father's wand, but when his aimless, vacant gaze drifts over his father's face, it's being carefully controlled, which is what gets Draco paying attention; seething under his terror, his father is livid. And then there's a flash of green light, and she's dead, of course. And then there's the snake--

And she's crying, calling for help, and it starts all over again.

So he deserved it. If not for the horrible crime of being unable to stomach a snake stomaching a human person, then for the actual horrible crime, minus the sarcasm, of having facilitated the whole stomaching thing to start with.

But a person can only sit in lukewarm water for so long before the novelty of intense misery just gets dull. So he took a measly five more minutes to soap up and rinse off, then dressed in his pyjamas to sneak down to the kitchen and get some of the dinner he hadn't had. He wasn't up to risking getting Mother angry at him as well by having Liddy in with dinner again. She'd never raised a hand to him, but the sight of her face creased in disappointment cut just as deeply. Plus, she'd been known to take away flying privileges without even thinking twice.

Draco didn't do anything so dramatic as move through his house like a ghost, but he might as well have. The lower-level, more squeamish Death Eaters had been scattered by the affair at dinner; the Old Guard were off in the pool house, celebrating in more adult styles. So he had the run of the corridors, padding down them in bare feet, taking the stairs two at a time and generally pretending it was his house again, which was the only way he could be certain not to get really and truly pissed off - now that there was no one around that could frighten him off that - and put a hole in the wall or something. Maybe draw a big black moustache onto his father on the huge family portrait in the foyer?

He idly thought up and discarded possible and relatively harmless pranks all the way to the kitchens. There was little point in putting real thought into the exercise because, as he'd been pretending, it was his house again and he'd only be mucking up his own things. But it did keep him busy. He was nothing, if not easily distracted by cheerful thoughts of vandalism and destruction. And there was possibly an unpoisoned half a roast duck waiting for him, which lightened his spirits a bit more.

And so it was in this considerably more jovial spirit that Draco slipped into the kitchen by the servants' entrance that never got used. As a child, he'd often wondered why they even had a second entrance, or indeed a first entrance. Mother didn't, as a rule, set foot in the kitchens, and the elves Apparated everywhere. He'd decided, applying a generous amount of youthful logic, that the most obvious answer was that one couldn't sneak into a place by its first door, and couldn't sneak into a place at all if it had no doors.

And all of that meant next to nothing if it turned out that one wasn't the only one in the kitchen when one started cheerfully looking through the larder for leftover dinner things.

Draco froze when he saw his father and Snape seated at the cutting counter. Snape looked to be midway to annoyed, and there was a cauldron bubbling nearby, which taken altogether meant that Snape was cooking something up, which explained why he was in the kitchen, although he could have used the potions store under the house near the dungeons if he'd had any real designs on serious potion-making.

But his father --

"Draco," Lucius drawled.

"Sorry, I-"

"Always sorry," he interrupted.

Draco put his hands up and backed away. "Never mind," he muttered, eager neither to get into another argument or stand there and just take his father's foul temper like a child.

Snape threw Lucius a look. "Did you want something, Mister Malfoy," he suggested.

"Isn't it obvious, Severus?" Lucius gestured with his wine glass. "The boy slept through dinner. He's hungry." He turned wild, bright eyes on Draco. "Sorry son. You know when dinner is in this house. I expect you'll be ravenous at breakfast. Ta now."

Draco glanced from his father to Snape and back, affectless. Snape was looking at him with something approaching concern, and he really really didn't think he could handle that from someone who'd been so calm when Burbage had been calling out to him, specifically, for help. So he steeled himself and lifted his chin and tilted his head. "Good night, Father. Professor."

"I don't know what you're worried about, Severus," he heard his father say loudly, so that he could hear it even as he slammed out the door. "It's not like he could have kept it down anyway!"

Draco fumed all the way back to his wing, stomping in irritation and even more frustrated that the expensive, plush carpeting dampened the sound. He couldn't even throw an effective tantrum. His stomach gnawed painfully; he'd not been able to eat more than half of his apple, what with worrying whether someone would hex him into next week or try to murder him or something at breakfast. The tuna and mustard for lunch had been nice, but he'd snagged it early, near eleven, to make up for not having been able to handle breakfast. And it was what - after midnight now. He kept losing time.

When he got to the grand double doors that led to his wing of the Manor, he stopped with his hands on the door knobs, staring at the ornate carving around the edges distractedly.

Stupid Snape. Stupid Voldemort and his stupid stupid snake! Draco pulled on the door handles even as he pitched himself forward, using the leverage to swing his foot into the door again and again until he heard the wood splinter, or maybe it was his toe - he was so beyond caring that he didn't stop until he'd exhausted himself and realised he was using the door as support.

Only then did he drag the doors open and limp into the corridor that over generations had led to the children's wing of the Manor. It was his alone, now, and he thought rather over-dramatically that it'd never be anyone else's after he was grown, never ever because he probably wouldn't survive the war and if he did, he certainly didn't ever want to live at home again, least of all have a family upon which to bestow the family curse. He never wanted to see that horrible nursery ever again, he thought as he passed his childhood playroom on the left. He never wanted to pass this marching line of family portraits, generations of Malfoys on one side, smatterings of portraits of the daughters and their families on the other, all soldiering on proudly like nothing was wrong. His own family portrait was at the end of the corridor nearest his personal rooms and he sneered up at himself as a four year old, waving happily while his father glanced at him sternly now and then, tapping him on the shoulder with his silver-topped walking stick, and his mother patted his fly-away hair back into place and tried to keep him from haring off after whatever shiny thing caught his eye.

He stumped past the stupid portrait and into his sitting room, draped in silver and green and mocking him for thinking he'd chosen any of it. With a drawn out sigh, he dropped onto the plush ornate sofa and stretched out on it. His foot throbbed reliably in time with his heart pounding.

"Young Master Draco!"

Liddy popped into the room, eyes wide. "Young Master Draco!" she repeated.

"What is it, you damned elf!" he growled, sitting up in a burst of temper. He ignored the stab of pain in his foot, except to let it fuel his ire. He stared at her, and then at the veritable feast she'd brought him. "What are you doing," he murmured, his voice low.

Liddy hopped from one foot to the other, wringing her hands. "Young Master Draco missed his dinner-!" she piped excitedly.

He was on his feet before she'd even finished the word, and she was cut off pretty neatly when his hands closed around her throat and they both went down.

"Stop calling me that!" he cried, slamming the elf into the floor again. Never mind that it was impossible to do any damage on that abominably thick carpet. Never mind never mind. "Stop it! What in the Hell do you think you're doing!" House elves were surprisingly strong, but they were disinclined to fight back against wizards they took as their masters, which he knew only technically included him. While his father had been gone, he'd got quite a bit more clout among the elves, but now that he was back, he was relegated once again to "Master's disruptive puppy, treat with care," and it rankled. He swiped the large turkey leg she'd dressed for him and beat her in the face with it repeatedly. "Are you trying to get me killed?" he shrieked, landing blow after blow. "Are you trying to get me disowned? You know, you know it's not allowed! You told her! You told her! I know it! What are you doing! What!"

Liddy screeched and cried and put her hands up to stop the blows. "Liddy isn't doing anything!" she cried out. "Young Master Draco needs-!"

"Don't you dare tell me what I need, you ungrateful, hideous little toad!" He spent the last of his energy punctuating each of the last of his words with the dull thud of turkey upside the elf's head, then sat on her, heaving great, sob-laced breaths. He didn't feel any better, he thought disjointedly, clumsily dragging himself off of her. Didn't, didn't. It wasn't the same as earlier that evening, not at all, and he wasn't - didn't - couldn't finish the thought. He kicked her away from him and got wearily to his feet. He'd wanted to break something; it was just as well house elves were sturdy. Getting a new one in to replace her might have enraged his rapidly unhinging father. Speaking of rapidly unhinging, he thought a bit frantically, threatened with laughter. He stood for a moment, getting his bearings.

"Bring me a bottle of red," he said then, hoarsely. He didn't turn around, but he knew she'd left from the pop her Apparation made. If he turned around, he knew, there'd be spilt turkey dressing, whatever wine had been in with dinner, vegetables, dessert, whatever - strewn out on the floor untidily. So he didn't turn around, just went into his bedroom, through it and into his lavatory to wash his face and hands and look at himself in the mirror. His jaw was purpling after all where his father had smacked him, where that gaudy horrible ring had caught him. Whatever. Didn't matter. He limped back into his room and collapsed onto his bed.

Okay, Draco. You've just beaten an elf bloody. Now what?

It was kind of freeing, actually. He could see why his father enjoyed it. She was smaller, weaker, and had no power over him, except that she might tattle on him again. The difference this time was that his father wouldn't care that he beat an elf. His mum might be disappointed, because he'd completely wrecked the carpet. But he'd fix that - he was seventeen now, and it wasn't illegal for him to practice magic outside of school - not that his parents had really enforced those sorts of rules. So he'd fix that, maybe tomorrow. If he could walk. He flexed his foot with the possibly broken toe, temporarily forgotten in his hopefully-brief foray into madness. Ow. Where was his wine?

On cue, Liddy cracked into the sitting room. Half a second later, another crack signified that she'd left again. Draco limped out.

He fell asleep halfway through the bottle, passed out on the couch with his cheeks red.

##

"Really, Severus," Lucius chided. "Don't be soft on him. He has quite a bit of growing up to do, and coddling won't help him a single bit."

Snape frowned and stirred the bubbling cauldron carefully. "Indeed, it will not," he agreed mildly. The insinuation that he was being soft on someone, even if it was Draco Malfoy, came unwelcome and not a little repellent. It was one thing to show him favour in class; quite another to suggest he cared whether the little snot ate his delicious meals with his loving doting parents or not.

Although it might have been true that the little snot was growing on him. Not because he was likable, because, while he had moments where the charm he'd inherited from his father shone through like sun through clouds, Draco was usually an airheaded brat who happened to be his father's son. He'd just always been there, first a tumbling tot tugging on Snape's hair and crying when Snape pushed him away, then as a curious child who chased the swans and cried when they fought back, and then as a snotty eleven-year-old in his Potions class, whinging on about how horrible Potter had been to him, and Snape had believed him because it'd have been just like Potter's father, and because Young Malfoy had quite left out the part where he'd been an insufferable twit.

But he hadn't had to accept Narcissa's pleading promise, never mind what Dumbledore wanted him to do. He might have been able to get out of doing so, argued more fervently that if the Dark Lord had wanted him to kill Dumbledore, he'd have assigned him the task. She'd have believed him, whatever idiotic excuse he'd thought up; she wasn't altogether bright on a good day, and they hadn't been good days at all. They'd been desperate - she'd been desperate. The desperate mother of a beloved son-

And whereas Potter's father had only ever been a cruel little idiot, Draco's had been something like a friend. And they looked very much alike, especially now that Draco was older, taller. His father had been quite a bit more solid a person, of course, where Draco was proving out to be more than a little weak under pressure, but -

Snape regarded his bubbling potion with annoyance. None of it truly mattered. He had a job to do.

"Do you know what he said to me," Lucius drawled.

Snape frowned at the way his voice slurred, but murmured, "No."

"He said - He said..." Lucius trailed off, staring at some empty space before him.

Snape narrowed his eyes. "I don't really care, Lucius," he said. "He's a teenaged boy. They're all idiots."

Lucius seemed to consider that. "Yes, I suppose," he agreed faintly. "I'll have to kill him myself if he embarrasses me like that again."

Snape kept himself from rolling his eyes. The joke was in poor taste, considering that they'd just witnessed someone being murdered, and considering the "political environment," especially since Lucius had stopped laughing after making it some three years back. He made a mental note to try to work it into a conversation with Draco, in all of his copious spare time, to make sure the boy knew it was a joke.

But not because he liked him. Just because.