Darling

Everything hurt. Even things he didn't realise could hurt, hurt. He groaned, first thing. Just in case the bastard who'd done it to him was sitting around. Didn't kill me, arsehole. Not even close.

"Draco."

Oh right. Open your eyes, idiot. He did, but it took effort. His mouth felt filled with cotton. He groaned again, but he'd been trying to make words that time, and not being able to lit up panic in his chest. He blinked around until the black faded a bit to reveal professor Snape, peering at him with that stupid irreconcilable concern again. "P... ser..." he managed.

"Relax, Mister Malfoy," Snape soothed.

"Relax," he breathed. "And how should I do that?" Only it didn't sound so much like words as it did the slurred attempts of a drunken toddler.

"I'll give you something-"

"No!" Draco even tried to sit up. He failed dramatically, but the attempt hadn't gone unnoticed.

"Mister Malfoy," Snape cautioned. "You're in no condition to make any sort of demands here. I understand your concern-"

"You don't. You couldn't."

"I do," Snape impressed imperiously, glowering down on at him. He pressed a hand to Draco's chest to keep him from trying to sit up again.

Draco wailed pitiably at the pressure on his twice lacerated chest and fell back into his fluffed pillows. "Has anyone ever mentioned," he gasped, "that you lack a certain bedside manner...?"

"From time to time," Snape rejoined coolly. "Often just after I've saved them from certain death."

Draco wrinkled his nose at the Potions Master, but didn't have a ready response. His head felt stuffed with wool and disjointed and he felt just a bit like he ought to be seeking vengeance in some way on something smaller and less powerful than his father was. The professor certainly didn't fit the bill, even if he had felt like he could move. Instead, he closed his eyes again and said, "I. He... was suborned, right?"

Snape didn't respond, so Draco opened his eyes and looked at him. "Wasn't he? It's all right." He said it in a rush. Too much to hope, really, but - "If it was a plan, to punish him by having him kill me himself, it's all right. I won't tell anyone that you said. I'm a good Occlumens. I swear-"

Snape drew his brows together and took a breath. "I could lie to you," he suggested.

Draco swallowed roughly. "You could," he agreed slowly. "But you don't have to. I won't tell."

"Draco..."

Draco's heart sank. "And if he wasn't," he continued, as though he'd always been all right with the other possibility, "that's all right as well. We knew he'd come back different."

Snape nodded, which was even more disheartening. Wasn't he supposed to say something more vague and hopeful, like, "well, you just never know!" The notion of Snape saying something so cheerful, possibly topping it off with a huge stupid grin, made Draco laugh slightly, which made him wince, which made his limbs spasm painfully. "Ow..." he muttered, eyelids fluttering.

Snape frowned. "Try not laughing inappropriately," he suggested. "I find it helps quite a bit."

"I was imagining you being cheerful," Draco said honestly. Really, what could he lose at this point? "It was hysterical."

"I suppose it would be," Snape allowed.

Draco narrowed his eyes, suddenly on edge. "Why are you being so..." He flapped a hand - or tried to. It was immobilised in a thin cast and hurt to move. He let it go without complaining. "... nice? Did something else happen?" He widened his eyes. "The mission-?"

"What do you know about the mission?" Snape asked, his voice suddenly much less conciliatory.

Draco shrank back by reflex and he glanced at the door of his room, stupidly, for rescue. Snape put a hand on his shoulder and Draco tensed, bracing himself. "I don't know anything," he managed in a small voice.

Snape paused and looked into his face for a long moment while Draco tried to exude confidence rather than the pants-wetting dread he actually felt. Then the professor gave his shoulder a more or less comforting squeeze. He summoned a chair and took a seat at Draco's bedside.

"Draco," he said. "You can trust me. I've made an Oath. I trust you know what that means?"

Draco nodded, then winced as the lights that were swimming in his vision exploded with the movement. "If you break it, you die instantly."

"Indeed," Snape replied. "I've taken an Oath to protect your life. If your life is endangered, so is mine. If for no other reason, look to that and trust me. All right?"

Draco thought better of nodding, and only closed his eyes wearily, breathing, "Yes, all right."

"I know you're tired, and you should get some rest. But first I've got to ask you some questions about tonight. This will help you relax a little." He offered a small vial.

Draco looked at it uneasily. "Father-" he started, then stopped. Snape looked earnest; those black eyes which were so difficult to read when he was just a student trying to see how much shit he could pull before losing House points were now impossible to gauge. Draco sighed softly and looked down at his bedspread. "Father put something in my drink last week," he admitted. "I really should have seen this coming."

"You did," Snape assured, and while it shouldn't have been so reassuring or comforting, it was. "You saw this coming," Snape continued. "I noticed. Avoiding him was the best move. You couldn't know you'd be alone in the house tonight."

"We weren't alone," Draco said quickly, new dread rising. "Mother-!"

"She's fine. She doesn't know anything, and she doesn't have to."

"Damn straight, she doesn't," Draco agreed emphatically. "No one does."

"Language," Snape warned, handing him the vial. "Now drink up. The faster you answer my questions, the sooner you can get some rest."

Draco took the vial with his left hand and paused a moment. Snape, if he wasn't lying, had taken an Oath, and Draco knew it was likely, because Snape had already done it once before. But his mum had pretty much backed him into a corner about it that first time near a year ago, and if the professor resented that... He looked up at Snape. "Why do you have to ask?" he murmured. "You're a Legilimens, aren't you?"

Snape offered him a less than patient look. "Because you're a competent Occlumens, and I know you'd fight me every step of the way. Do you really think it'd be less horrible to sustain yet another curse tonight in order to relive each of the ones that came before, than it would be to simply tell me about them?"

Draco frowned. He was tired; his composure was waning. He was about two seconds from snapping at his professor, but at least, he thought giddily, he couldn't lose House points. "It's summer," he mumbled, then winced. He hadn't meant to say that aloud. He suddenly felt nauseous and sped up. His vision cracked into two, vividly coloured and dizzying. "Shit-!" He tried to sit up but Snape's hands were on his shoulders, pressing him back into his pillows again. His back arched without having first asked him, and he choked back a sudden sob.

Snape swiped the vial from his hand and then held him firmly down into his bed. "Draco," he said firmly. "Calm down."

Draco stared at his professor's face without much comprehension, his breath coming in ragged desperate gasps. A thousand thoughts raced through his mind, and he couldn't grab on to any of them. His heart raced madly; he knew with a certainty that he'd be sick, and with another certainty that he'd never be anything ever again. "God," he mumbled as his eyelids fluttered. Calm down, calm down. He could do that. He wrenched his eyes open and focused on Snape's blurry face. "Professor," he said, and while it should have been clear, he found that no sound at all came from his lips. He tried again. It wasn't just him. There was no sound at all. He saw Snape's mouth moving.

So he waited. There wasn't anything he could do, clearly. Snape would have to do it. But Snape didn't do anything. Just held him down and watched him kindly, which was odd and terrifying. Was he dying? Oh God - no, no, just calm down.

His breathing calmed a few moments later. His vision cleared and refocused. Hearing came back. Snape was murmuring soothing, silky things to him. The pressure on his shoulders had all but disappeared as he got more and more relaxed.

"-after effects," Snape was saying.

Draco blinked. "Sorry... what?"

Snape looked annoyed. "I was telling you to calm down, that fits like this are possible after effects. Of the curses you sustained."

Not the curses your own father cast at you. Of course not.

Draco nodded, his mouth dry. "How long...?"

Snape interpreted him. "That might have been the last one. You've already had two others."

"I don't remember..."

"It's just as well," Snape said casually, then offered the vial. "You will drink this. No more stalling."

Draco took the vial, thought of three more questions he could have asked, then bravely tossed the whole thing back like a shot of mild whiskey. "Ugh, that's foul," he murmured.

"Oh," Snape said pleasantly, "Then I've brewed it correctly. I'm so pleased to hear it."

Ah right, that wasn't pleasantly, that was sarcastically. Clearly, being cursed several times messed with Draco's ability to tell the difference. "Sorry," he muttered.

"Now then. Let's start at the beginning." When Draco had nodded, Snape continued. "Describe for me what you were doing just previously to the attack."

"I was brushing up on my wand technique. I'm going back to school in the fall," he added unnecessarily.

"Where were you?"

"In the library."

"Why were you brushing up on your technique?"

"Because I paid absolutely no attention in class last term, and because no one bothers me when I'm in the library," he over-answered.

Snape looked pleased about something. Draco had a sinking feeling he was about to become really irritated about whatever it was. Snape'd probably thought he'd lie about something like that, and was pleased to see he'd been honest. Or something.

"Describe your encounter with your father."

Draco fidgeted. You know this, he meant to say, but instead said, rather sluggishly, "He came into the library-" Draco froze. Oh God. Veritaserum. He looked at Snape, stung and betrayed. You better have not lied about that Oath, arsehole, or I will SO kill you. His face twisted in anger even as his traitorous mouth went on. "- and grabbed my wand hand. He said something-"

"What did he say?"

Even drugged to tell the truth, Draco had to fight his memory for control. "He said... 'So sweet, the little student hard at work...' We had some other conversation-"

"Tell me as much of it as you can remember."

Draco fumed, but couldn't help himself. He wracked his memory. "I asked whether he wasn't out on the mission, and he said he wasn't, obviously, because he hadn't a wand, and because the Dark Lord had told him to stay home and... mind his son." Before he could stop himself, he continued, "then he swiped my wand and cast a silencing charm over the room. He said that it was his wand, and I protested and asked for it back-" Like an idiot, he would have added, if the Veritaserum had allowed it. "-but he just said... I'd never hold a wand again. Then he..." He glanced down at his immobilised wrist and hoped that was enough to satisfy the drug.

Before the serum could compel him though, Snape nodded and said, "All right. What happened next?"

Draco took that as permission to skip the embarrassing details regarding his spineless sobbing all over his father's shirtfront and said, "He made me stand up-"

"With?"

"Imperius."

"All right."

Draco shook his head and closed his eyes. He didn't want to talk about it. Why did Snape even want to know?

"You'll only get a headache if you try to resist, Draco," Snape murmured.

So Draco took a breath and hung his head and gave in, because it was easier than having pride and honour and a spine. He told Snape whatever he asked, and Snape didn't appear to either care or be surprised, until it came to the final curse.

"How did Lucius know about Sectumsempra? If you don't know, just say that."

Draco shrugged listlessly. "I don't know how he found out about last year. He didn't seem to know the curse, though, so he... made me tell him."

Snape watched him for a moment, but Draco didn't care. The Veritaserum had leeched his composure, dignity, and any energy he might have once had.

"Then I don't remember anything else until you found me."

Snape frowned. "This isn't the first time he's been hard on you, is it?" he pointed out. Like Draco needed the reminder. He huffed.

"No." He'd meant to go on to say it was the first time he'd nearly killed him, but even though Snape seemed finished with his questions, Draco was still beholden to the serum. "Last week, after I... after the Burbage thing-"

Snape cut him off. "I suspected as much." He looked thoughtful for a moment, then narrowed his eyes and said: "And before that?"

Draco closed his eyes and pressed himself back into his pillows, remembering all the stupid stunts he'd pulled over the years trying to be like his father, trying to impress him or just meet his expectations. Looking back, he could see just how far short he'd fallen, not explicitly because he was a failure, but because he'd never really known what his father wanted from him. Lucius probably didn't know either. "Father's a difficult man," he managed. It was the truth, and it was sort of an answer, but the headache was starting. He really didn't want to have to explain the raspberry bush incident, or the thing with the puppy, or the dungeons or that one time during his flying lessons. He opened his mouth to go on against his will and felt himself pale.

Snape patted his shoulder. "That's enough, Mister Malfoy," he demurred smoothly.

Draco opened his eyes enough to see Snape was getting up to leave. "I hate you," he breathed.

Snape paused. "Is that so," he murmured.

Draco closed his eyes again, so near passing out that he could feel the cold of blissful unconsciousness creeping into his limbs. "I would have told you the truth," he slurred breathily. "Never drug me again..."

##

Snape pressed his mouth into a thin line as the boy winked quite out of consciousness. It would have been foolhardy to laugh at his last, oh so earnest sentiments, but the fact of the matter was that Draco Malfoy couldn't have hexed a fly into buzzing around in a circle in his state. He was paler than usual, around high spots of colour on his cheeks, and had already sweat through a set of sheets before he'd waked up. Snape had sympathy for the boy, so much as could be had for the sort of bully Malfoy was. Not so different from James Potter, really. And he'd been as prepared as most of the rest to write him off as the Lucius Malfoy of the next generation - a hard man to please, and far too good at being deviously evil--

Until the events of his sixth year proved him out as a fearful, spineless - no, that wasn't right. An inability to commit murder at one's own expense wasn't the product of fear. Doing whatever he thought it took to keep his family safe wasn't spineless. It was just misdirected. He should have gotten to him sooner. He should have taken him aside right after his father was sent to Azkaban. If he'd trusted Dumbledore's instincts about Malfoy, he might have been in a better place to - If Albus had had time to mention it in more than just passing between trying to keep that damnedable fool Potter alive, perhaps-

Snape frowned as Draco tried to shift in his sleep and winced. There was still that sleeping potion in the kitchens. The last thing Malfoy needed was yet another potion introduced into his system, but if he didn't get any sleep at all, he'd be laid up that much longer. With a plan in mind, he sighed hard at the stupid boy and swept out of his rooms toward the kitchens.

He found Lucius loitering around the unmended double doors leading to the nursery wing.

"Lucius," Snape said smoothly, gesturing that the elder Malfoy should walk with him.

Lucius didn't take the hint. Instead, he waited until Snape was barely out of the way before he put his hands on the door handles. Snape tapped at his knuckles with his wand, narrowing his eyes menacingly.

"I wouldn't," he said.

Lucius narrowed his eyes back and said, "He's my son, Severus."

"Indeed he is. Walk with me."

Lucius regarded him for a moment more before he acquiesced. They walked for a few paces before he broke the silence. "I'll not be chided in my own home."

"Indeed, I'll not play nursemaid to your family woes," Snape agreed. "At this juncture, it is only my concern that you not murder one of the Dark Lord's inner circle. You are aware that Draco bears the Mark, and has done since just after your arrest?"

Lucius frowned. "Yes."

Snape tsked. It was like teaching eleven year olds advanced potions. After another few steps, Snape turned on him. "What were you thinking would happen, you insufferable twit?" he hissed, with rather more venom than he'd meant.

Lucius cocked his head back at a tilt - trademark Malfoy. Draco had it down to an irritating tee. "He's all right now, isn't he?"

"No thanks to you. When I found you, you seemed content to let him bleed out on the floor."

"I didn't know the countercurse," Lucius defended. "I knew you were due back soon."

"And did you intend," Snape ground out, leaning close, his knuckles white around his wand, "to wreck him for further service to our Lord? The curse you performed was designed to be nigh-unfixable. I know because you learned it from me."

Lucius couldn't hold his gaze. "I don't have to explain myself to you," he said, sounding strained. His eyes shone, and Snape was disgusted.

"Not to me, no. But perhaps to him. And most certainly to our Lord. Explain to him why the Death Eater with the best age to success ratio in the club will be two weeks before he can hold a wand again, least of all reliably wield it. You're lucky I came when I did."

"Lucky, am I?" Lucius breathed. "You're a fool, Severus. You always have been. It's easy, isn't it. To play at teaching Potions-" He spat the word, advancing. "-while doing absolutely nothing at all. The rest of us have to contend with a boy who defeated the Dark Lord as an infant, and yet we're the failures for having tried, while you play at chemistry with him every day for ten months of the year and get commended for giving him detention!"

"Is that what you think!" Snape purred silkily, eyes flashing.

"Lucius? Severus?" Narcissa Malfoy's timid voice called from the doorway of the parlour.

Snape pulled Lucius in one last time to murmur, "If you love your son at all, you will not tell her what you've done."

Lucius gave him a hard look and then schooled his face into a gracious smile before turning to his wife with outstretched arms. It was unsettling the way he managed it, Snape thought, as Lucius swept Narcissa into a husbandly embrace and kissed her. Vaguely, he wondered whether Draco'd inherited the ability as reliably as he'd inherited the smirk, and then more disturbingly, he wondered how long he'd been employing it to cover up whatever Father's a difficult man had meant to include. He'd always had a short temper in both directions, just as Lucius did; one moment, angry and irritated, laughing the next. He wasn't quite as good at forcing the switch, but given a few more years of tutelage with the man who was talking grandly about some party he was planning, and Draco'd be a pro at not getting angry quite so quickly. His temper told on him.

Of course, that presumed the boy lived long enough, and after Dumbledore's last bundle of requests, it was, if not at the top of his list, somewhere in the middle of Snape's priorities. If he couldn't find it in him to save the boy for his own good, he had to do it for Dumbledore's ghost. And if he didn't, he could be sure to hear about it from that blasted portrait he left behind.

##

It was three whole days before Draco was allowed out of bed. Mother had been informed of his "accident" the morning after. If he hadn't been so determined to keep her in the dark about it, he'd have been truly incensed that she'd believed the lie. A massive backfire when practicing? Who had ever heard of such a thing? Least of all, happening to him.

He was incensed that the story involved his doting father happening upon his mewling near-corpse just in the nick of time. It was maddening. Draco refused to speak with him when he visited, instead making a point to speak to Snape or his mother and ignore his father completely. And while he was still completely pissed off at Snape for having drugged him, he couldn't help feeling grateful that he was present each and every time Lucius made an appearance without Narcissa. Lucius looked uncomfortable and annoyed each time, clearly having wanted time alone, and that all by itself was enough to cheer Draco up a bit. His father fumed and twitched and couldn't touch him, because to do so in front of others would have been undignified. It didn't occur to Draco until half-way through the third day that he was setting himself up for a horrible fall if and when his father managed to get him alone. But he wasn't giving up his wand again. Not in a million years, and he'd heard Lucius' had been destroyed in the Mission.

Of course, that million would have to start after he was able to hold a wand again in the first place. Snape had explained it to him, but all he heard was "Your dad's a bastard, and tried to cripple you for life. Luckily, I'm also a bastard and created the curse in the first place, so I've put things mostly to rights."

The point was, it'd be at least another week before he could get the cast off, and another before he could make a swishing movement. Then months of work to get his technique back, and he'd let it go for a year to start with. Not fun.

His first outing was to be dinner. It was also his first time getting dressed in proper clothes in three days, and he'd have to do it one-handed. And he wasn't yet allowed his tonic because Snape was worried.

Ha. Snape who'd drugged him was worried that a drug prescribed to him by a Mediwitch would do him more harm than good? It was laughable, but his mother believed it, so he was stuck.
There was a -pop- in his bedroom. Draco stuck his head out of his bathroom to check.

"Mistress has sent Liddy to help Young Master Draco," Liddy mumbled without looking at him.

Draco stared for a moment. Then, in the vacuum where thoughts should have been, words rushed into his mind. She deserved it. She doesn't even have feelings. God, Draco, they're barely even sentient! Besides which, they like punishment. It makes them feel useful, appreciated. Like what they do matters enough to be recognized when they screw up.

Except that if that last were true, then they did have feelings.

But it was all rubbish. All of it. The fact of the matter was that he didn't feel horrible for having beaten her with a turkey leg. He felt horrible for having beaten her with a turkey leg while blaming her for something that had been due to his own weakness to start with, and for doing something she had thought he'd wanted.

More than that, he felt horrible for beating her because a day earlier, his mother had visited with him and had asked him whether he wanted to get Liddy in with dinner again like before, because she'd noticed he'd been missing meals and wanted to be sure he was getting properly fed. He'd pressed her and learned that both of the previous meals had been sent by his mother, who had clearly had a change of heart regarding taking meals in his rooms. He'd been a fool to trust either of his parents to be constant.

But of course, even if he'd been allowed out of bed, Draco knew he wouldn't have made an effort to find the elf and apologise. It just wasn't done. Who even knew what an elf would do if it was apologised to?

But now she was here, looking everywhere but at him.

He still couldn't do it. The best he could do was look away and say, "I can do it myself. It's all right," very quietly.

"Mistress says-"

Draco sighed and slunk into the room, his mood going swiftly south. "Whatever," he mumbled, collapsing into a chair near his wardrobe. He limply allowed the house-elf to help him manoeuvre his right arm into his sleeve, then button up his shirt for him, to slip his shoes onto his feet. She even brushed his hair into sleek smoothness from the untidy mess it had been.

"What did you think-" he began hesitantly, when she'd come back with his tie.

Liddy blinked her lamplight eyes at him, waiting patiently for him to go on.

Draco swallowed uneasily. "Never mind."

Liddy's ears drooped and she reached up to sling his tie around his neck. Draco bent to facilitate. Her wrinkly splayed fingers worked the tie expertly.

"All house-elfs knows," she said after a moment, concentrating on his tie rather more than he thought she needed to. "All house-elfs knows," she repeated, "about Master." She patted his tie into place consideringly, then looked up at him with a tiny smile. "Malfoys is mean in their blood. Malfoys can't help it."

"What's that supposed to mean?" he snarled without meaning to.

She didn't startle or shrink back. She had probably expected a blow. "It means," she replied with a hopeless shrug, "Liddy forgives Young Master Draco, without being asked."

Draco furrowed his brows and lowered his gaze, nodding. It was the closest he could bring himself to saying thanks, because that was just another thing you didn't do. "Liddy," he said instead. "Please don't call me young any more. It's factually incorrect." His temper was decidedly even. It was kind of nice.

Liddy noticed. She cheered up visibly. "As Master Draco wishes," she piped.

It was strange, the way house-elves didn't react the way people would have. He'd have been summarily chided for having been ungrateful, if it'd been his mother, but Liddy just lapped up the request like it was affection. The mind boggled.