A Year Like None Other

aspeninthesunlight

Story Summary:
A letter from home? A letter from family? Well, Harry Potter knows he has neither, but all the same, it starts with a letter from Surrey. A letter that sends Harry down a path he'd never have walked on his own. It will be a year of big changes, a year of great pain, and a year of confronting worst fears. It will be a year of surprising discoveries, of finding true strength, of finding out that first impressions of a person's true colours do not always ring true. It will be a year of paradigm shifts. And from the most unexpected sources, Harry will have a chance to have that which he has never known: a home ... and a family. (A Snape adopts Harry fic.)
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Chapter 83 - Just Desserts

Posted:
07/05/2006
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5,279
Author's Note:
Betaed by the Fabulous Mercredi.

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters or this fictional universe. JK Rowling, some publishers, and some film companies own everything. I'm not making anything from this except a hobby.

Summary: A letter from home sends Harry down a path he'd never have walked on his own. A sixth year fic, this story follows Order of the Phoenix and disregards any canon events that occur after Book 5. Spoilers for the first five books. Have fun!

A million thanks as usual to Mercredi, my diligent and supportive beta.

Warning: Some readers may find elements of this chapter to be disturbing.

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A Year Like None Other

by Aspen in the Sunlight

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Chapter Eighty-Three: Just Desserts

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When Harry woke up, the first thing he noticed was that his brother was gone.

The other boy's bed was rumpled as though he'd got up in an awful hurry, and the piles on the floor had been disturbed, just as if someone had picked out what little they needed and then flung the rest into a great heap in the corner.

"Draco!" Harry shouted, leaping out of bed so fast he ended up with an ankle tangled in the sheets. Hastily freeing himself, he sped out to the living room, only to be brought up short by the sight of his brother calmly sitting at the table in the dining alcove, steadily moving quill across parchment.

When Harry came close, Draco looked up with tired grey eyes. "Problem?"

"I woke up and you weren't there and I thought... um..."

"You thought what, that I'd run away?" Draco gave a long sigh, the tip of his quill dripping ink. When he noticed it he swore softly, because of course without magic he had no way to clean away the messy spots on his lines. He wiped the tip of his quill on a spare bit of parchment as he spoke. "I don't have anywhere to go, Harry. Though that may not make any difference to Severus at this point. I can't figure out what made me think he'd put up with..."

Dipping his quill in the inkpot again, Draco went back to work, writing line after line after line.

"Have you seen Dad?"

That time, Draco didn't look up to answer. "No, and I've been out here most of the night. He's apparently still..." The boy's voice went quiet. Dead, almost. "Arranging things."

Harry swallowed, noticing the unevenly stacked parchment shoved to one side of the table. Completed lines, no telling how many. A lot, though. An awful lot. Pulling out a chair, he tried to give his brother an encouraging smile.

Draco didn't smile back. "Are you sure you don't know what he's going to do about... me?"

"No, I don't know."

"So I might have cleaned the room and done all these lines for nothing," Draco said, morose.

Harry wouldn't have called what Draco had done in the room cleaning by any stretch of the imagination, but he was hardly going to mention that at a time like this. "It's not for nothing--"

"It is if he unadopts me. What else could he possibly be arranging?"

"I don't know, but it's not that." Harry thought of saying that Draco knew Harry's secrets, so course there was no question of Draco being thrown out. He couldn't live at Hogwarts unless he was Snape's son, and if he didn't live at Hogwarts the Death Eaters would get him, sooner or later. No matter how angry Snape was, he wouldn't risk doing anything that would end up endangering Harry.

Harry decided, though, that it wouldn't be very nice to explain any of that. It was beside the point anyway. Snape was committed to Draco for reasons that had nothing at all to do with Harry.

"Well, I think I'll get dressed and then get ready to go to Devon--"

Draco finished one line and moved right on to the next. "You're delusional if you still think we're still going on holiday." He glanced up, shrugging. "But if you want to pack, go ahead. I'll get us something for breakfast."

When Harry returned, however, Draco was still writing lines, a scowl on his face.

Harry went to order breakfast himself, but when he tried to get some Floo powder, his fingers found only a scrap of parchment. Curious, he pulled it out and saw that it was actually a tiny envelope. For emergencies only was written across it in Snape's hand. Harry shook it and heard the shifting of powder.

"So much for not using food as a punishment," Draco bitterly mocked as Harry sat down at the table. "I can't even order a meal, now."

"Well, I'm sure Dad's not going to let you starve," Harry said in a reasonable voice as he sat down at the table. "He just doesn't think you should have a limitless supply of Floo powder after what you did. But look, if he didn't care about you he wouldn't have left an emergency supply. He wants you to be able to firecall him if you have a serious problem."

"Ha. He wants you to be able to firecall. I'm sure I can go straight to the devil for all he cares." Draco dotted an i so viciously that the tip of his quill snapped off.

"I'm sure he's angry," Harry corrected. "I'm angry, too. What you did, and then all the lies, and blaming Dobby..." Harry sighed, because as furious as he felt, he also thought that yelling at Draco just now wasn't going to do any of them any good. "Weren't you listening last night, though? We do still love you."

"I wish you'd stop saying that," Draco muttered, quickly looking down.

"I know, but I'm not going to, or at least, not until you start to understand what it means to be part of a family."

"Oh, like you would know so much about families." Draco's long fingers snatched another quill from the pile on the table.

"Yeah, well whatever I know is what Severus taught me, so I know he still loves you!"

Harry never got to find out what Draco might have replied, for at that moment they heard Snape coming into the room. And he wasn't arriving by Floo. He'd apparently been in his bedroom. But if Draco had been writing lines most of the night and hadn't seen Snape come back from his arrangements, whatever that meant, the man must not have been gone very long the night before.

"Good morning, Harry, Draco," he greeted them both, frowning as he checked his watch. "Breakfast should be here by now, I would think."

No sooner had he spoken than steaming platters and bowls full of food appeared on the table, along with a stack of three plates and assorted utensils.

Draco bit his lip, then jumped up and began prying his parchment sheets out from under all of it. He didn't speak to his father, but sort of waved his work for him to see.

"Ah, so that wasn't a mouse I heard out here all night," Snape murmured.

That seemed to loosen Draco's tongue. "You heard me working and didn't come out to talk to me?"

Snape seated himself and began methodically serving out the food. "I needed time to consider your offences," he calmly replied. "Do be seated, Draco." Snape passed a plate to each of his sons. "Now, as you may have realised already, you will no longer be at liberty to order what you wish from the kitchens. Food will arrive here at mealtimes and you'll eat whatever is being served in the Great Hall."

"Yes, sir," said Draco in a low voice.

Unlike with Harry, Snape didn't rebuke the use of sir. Maybe he thought it was high time Draco learned a little respect.

"So that's my punishment? I'm forbidden the Floo?"

Snape ate a forkful of scrambled egg before he answered. "That's merely a sensible precaution on my part since I can't possibly trust you."

Draco's lips quivered a bit at that, though of course Snape was saying nothing but the truth. "I... all right, you can't. I'm sorry--"

"Tea, Harry?" questioned Snape, glancing his way.

Harry shook his head.

"Tea for you, Draco?"

"Didn't you hear me?" asked Draco in a plaintive voice. "I said I was sorry."

"I heard you," Snape answered, dark eyes steady on his Slytherin son once more. "Unfortunately, I rather doubt you mean it."

"I do! I'm really, really sorry!"

He looked to Harry, then, eyes beseeching, and though Harry felt uncomfortable, he also felt it was his duty as a brother to say something. "He cried and cried last night, Dad. And when has Draco ever wept like that? I think he really does regret what he did."

"I think he regrets getting caught," Snape replied in a hard voice.

"No, I--"

"You might as well know the truth," interrupted the Potions Master. "Your poisoning attempt did actually garner a victim."

Draco's pale face went whiter than usual. "Oh, no."

"Yes, you're envisioning a longish stint in Azkaban right about now, I imagine," Snape went on.

"Did..." By then, even Draco's lips were white. He hadn't eaten a bite of his breakfast. "Am I to be charged?"

"Don't you even want to know who ate one of your infernal fairy cakes? Or are you too busy worrying about yourself to even care that you made someone ill? Someone not in league with Lucius, by the way. Someone, in fact, who wouldn't dream of aligning himself with Lucius. Someone innocent."

By the end, Harry thought, their father's voice was cold enough to freeze embers.

"Who?" Draco gasped.

The Potions Master stood up and waved his wand to summon Dobby, who appeared accompanied by a noise rather like a thunderclap.

"Who?" Draco asked again, and then in tones of relief. "Oh, him. Well, that's fine then."

Harry sighed, seeing now what Snape had so effortlessly seen earlier. Draco was only thinking of himself. He wasn't relieved because Dobby was obviously all right; all he cared about was the fact that Harry could tell this particular elf to keep the whole thing a secret! In fact, ignoring Dobby completely, Draco was turning to Harry to say something!

Snape raised his voice slightly. "You will apologise, Draco."

"I did! I said I was sorry--"

"You will say that to him." Snape inclined his head toward the elf, who was being uncharacteristically silent. Harry could only think that this was one of the things Snape had gone to arrange the previous night.

Draco crossed his arms in front of his chest. "I'm not apologising to a damned house-elf."

"Oh yes, you most certainly are," Snape corrected, his voice utterly cold.

Draco opened his mouth as though to object again, then closed it, his silver eyes gleaming hard. "Fine, fine. Sorry, Tobby."

"His name's Dobby!"

"Sorry, Dobby," Draco grated. "There. Satisfied?" His gaze swept the room from Snape to Harry and back.

Ignoring his son's behaviour, Snape reached into a trouser pocket and drew out a length of fine, shimmering fabric edged with silver tassels. Leaning down, he draped it around Dobby's shoulders, arranging the shawl so it wouldn't touch the floor. "For your loyal service to Harry Potter," the Potions Master said. "You have my deepest gratitude."

Dobby's eyes filled with tears. "Dobby is happy to be helping Harry Potter."

Snape smiled. "Yes, I am aware." Stepping back then, he nodded for the elf to depart.

Dobby glanced once at Harry before Apparating away.

Draco huffed a little as he poured himself half a glass of pumpkin juice. "What was all that about? If the stupid little elf is going to nick fairy cakes clearly meant for students, then I say he deserves what he gets."

"You prat!" Harry shouted. "That was the worst apology I've ever heard! And anyway, Dad told you the elves are testing any mystery food that shows up! You didn't bother to ask why, did you now--"

Snape smoothly interrupted him. "I think that's a discussion for another day, Harry."

"Oh yeah, well you can bet that you and I will be discussing it!" Harry shot back. "Because I had a right to know about that chocolate cauldron, didn't I--"

"Right now what matters is your brother," Snape interrupted again, his eyes this time glaring daggers.

Harry nodded, his lips pressed tightly together.

"Oh, so I matter, do I? I was getting the feeling only Harry and elves do. For your loyal service..." Draco slammed his glass of juice down onto the table. "Well, I'm not stupid enough to think the worst you'll do is demand I apologise to that Wobby."

"Dobby!" Harry shouted.

"So, let's have the rest, Severus. What exactly is my punishment? I think you've let me stew long enough, don't you?"

"I'd rather not discuss the matter until we reach Devon."

"We're still going on holiday?"

"We're still a family."

Draco blinked, his eyes suspiciously bright. He turned away to wipe at them, and stared at the table. "I thought you wouldn't want to be around me much, not after this."

Snape walked across to the boy and laid a hand on his shoulder. "Draco... You have disappointed me more than I can say. But you're my son. I won't stop loving you, not ever."

"L- L- Lucius did!" Evidently frustrated with his own tears, Draco pounded a fist on the table.

Moving around to the front of the boy, Snape clasped both his hands and squeezed. "Lucius didn't love you, not as I do. When you rescued Harry's wand, that was a terrible betrayal in his eyes, and his response was to utterly repudiate you. And now, what you have done here, it is a terrible betrayal as well. Of me, this time. But I will not repudiate you, Draco. I will never disown you."

"I... I..." Draco couldn't finish; it sounded to Harry like his throat was clogging up with tears.

"That's not to say I can protect you from the consequences of your thirst for vengeance," Snape quietly went on as he moved one hand to rest atop Draco's bowed head. "We have to live with the results of what we have chosen to do, Draco. And nothing... not love, not family, not even the loyal support of Harry Potter can shield you from what logically must follow now."

Draco gasped and raised a tear-stained face. "The Aurors?"

"We'll talk about it out in Devon," Snape said again, then turned to his older son. "Harry, have you Sals with you?"

Harry reached into his pocket and fished her out.

"I'll hold her while you floo up to your common room and collect your things."

Harry had already packed for Devon out of the things he had here at home, but he supposed it would be better to go get Sals' box, not to mention a few other items. Handing his father the snake, he questioned, "But wait... Floo to my common room, did you say?"

Snape extended a tiny vial of powder from his pocket as Sals slithered up his arm to loop around his neck. Harry thought the man looked vaguely put out by that. "My quarters connect to the Gryffindor common room, yes."

Harry wondered if perhaps that was one of the things Snape had arranged when he'd vanished last night. Presumably he hadn't wanted to walk Harry up as that would mean leaving Draco alone. Not a good idea considering how unstable the other boy seemed. "How long have your rooms been linked to the Tower?"

"Nearly six years."

"Six years!" exclaimed Harry.

"Yes. Albus saw to it almost as soon as you were sorted into Gryffindor. In case of emergencies. Madam Pomfrey can Floo directly in as well."

"But you hated me..."

His father curled his lips in a rather rueful smile. "Oh, yes. I do believe I told Albus in rather scathing terms that Gryffindor could see to its own. But then I found out at your first Quidditch match that Minerva had no notion of the kind of danger you were in, and I stopped resenting the connection quite as much. Though of course that didn't mean I liked you any the better."

Harry shrugged to say that was all behind them and didn't matter now. "I wish you'd told me about the Floo earlier. Well, at least now I won't have to walk down all the time--"

Snape held up a hand. "I would not recommend you use the Floo connection except when the other students are largely absent, as today. Or in case of emergency. Otherwise, it could engender ill feelings. Students are not normally permitted to utilise the common room Floos, you understand."

He laid a slight amount of stress on the word normally, which made Harry think the man probably knew Harry had used his to talk with Sirius. Or maybe it was a slight dig at Draco, who had flinched on hearing it.

Still, Harry said, "Oh, the other Gryffindors won't mind--"

"It was my understanding that you had no wish for special privileges."

"You would remind me of that," Harry said a little sourly.

"A father's prerogative." Snape shrugged. "So then, hurry along and collect what you need. Draco, you claimed last night to be packed already, but I'm afraid that amidst all your other lies I don't quite know what to believe. Is that in fact the case?"

Draco flushed, his eyes still rimmed with red from his crying. "I'm packed," he quietly said, meeting his father's eyes.

"I don't need to go check on this to have faith it might be true?"

That time, Draco did nothing more than shake his head.

"Very well." Snape banished away what remained of their breakfast. "You may continue your lines until Harry returns."

For just a moment--a heartbeat only--Harry wondered if Draco was going to go back to his longstanding defiance. Then he saw the other boy pull his parchments back towards him and bend over them once more, his hand trembling as he started to write.

"Harry, go," Snape urged.

Nodding, Harry uncapped the vial of powder he'd been given and stepped into the fireplace.

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When he got back, broom in hand and a few other items in his arms, Draco was still industriously writing away. Snape was sitting at the table with him, a book in hand. Harry almost choked when he saw which one it was. Adolescent Trauma: The Road to Recovery.

Harry sort of doubted it was happenstance, Snape deciding to read that book right in front of Draco.

"I'll just go put these with the stuff I'd already packed," said Harry.

Snape nodded absently as he turned the page.

Harry got everything but the broom into his duffel, then took a last, depressed look around his room, wishing he could cast some cleaning spells in here as well. But Snape's we have to live with the consequences of our actions speech was still weighing heavy on his mind. Draco had lost any right to expect that Snape would trust him with magic for the time being, so he'd have to live without.

Though Harry couldn't help but wonder what other consequences Snape had in mind for his brother. He couldn't really imagine the man assigning more lines, or setting an essay, even. Five feet, Draco. Describe in detail why one should not poison one's fellow school mates.... No, that was just bloody ridiculous.

But what else was there to do? Snape wasn't the sort of father to administer a wizard's beating, after all. Harry couldn't even imagine the man ever slapping either of them.

And anyway, what good would a slap do? Draco needed a consequence more serious than that, surely. Snape couldn't intend to call the Aurors, though. He wouldn't have arranged for Dobby's silence were that the case.

But Kingsley Shacklebolt is an Auror, Harry suddenly thought. And he's in the Order, too. Maybe Snape firecalled him last night and asked him to throw a good hard scare into Draco...

Would Snape trust Kingsley to not charge Draco for real, though?

Harry's head was starting to ache, so he gave up wondering what his father had in mind and went back out to the living room.

"All set," he said, planting himself alongside the table in the dining alcove.

Snape looked up from his book. "Draco. How many lines have you completed?"

Draco set aside his quill and flexed his hand. "One thousand eight hundred and ninety-seven. And a half."

Harry thought Draco must have done nothing but, all night long, to have got so far.

"Do I need to count them to be sure of that?" drawled Snape.

"No."

"Very well. You may leave those here. I trust you have packed plenty of spare parchment and ink?"

Draco sighed. "Yes, and my lesson schedules and all my books."

Harry thought of saying that he'd be happy to help Draco get caught back up in his subjects, but he decided it would make him sound too much like he was trying to show Draco up.

"Very well," Snape said again. "Harry, if I may have your permission to charm your pet into a bracelet once more?"

It was nice, Harry thought, that this time Snape had asked. But really, they ought to be asking Sals. He held his hand out for his snake and had a brief chat with her about the matter, then nodded.

"So, we'll floo to Grimmauld Place and Apparate from there as usual," Snape announced as Draco walked off to get his things. Unlike at Christmas, when he'd insisted on taking his entire trunk, this time the boy reappeared carrying a serviceable duffel much like Harry's. That made sense, in a way; Draco didn't actually have a trunk any longer. Harry supposed Snape had purchased him the duffel on their Hogsmeade trip.

"I can't Apparate without a wand," Draco said when he came back.

That surprised Harry. He didn't think wizards needed wands for that. Not that he knew of, anyway. Though perhaps Draco needed one because he had learned to Apparate when he was really too young to be doing it.

"You can't Apparate with one, either," announced Snape in a hard voice. "As you're not yet licensed."

"You never cared about that before--"

"A mistake in retrospect, as you appear to have concluded that disregarding one law means you can disregard them all."

That certainly shut Draco up. He hefted his duffel over his shoulder and went into the fireplace to wait.

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When they arrived in the meadow outside the cottage, Snape staggered slightly. Apparently side-along Apparition with two passengers and all their gear was no simple accomplishment. But Snape couldn't bring them one at a time without leaving Draco alone at some point. He seemed resolved to avoid that if at all possible.

Harry took a moment to let his queasiness pass, then looked around. Wildflowers were blooming along the low stone wall which marked the boundary of Snape's property, and the trees beyond that were swaying in the breeze. Devon was lovelier than ever, he thought, beginning to walk over to the cottage.

Draco sat down straight away at the small square table opposite the door, and began pulling writing supplies out of the duffel he'd plunked down at his feet.

"That can wait," Snape announced. "It's time you and I had a serious talk about what you did."

Suddenly feeling a bit uncomfortable, Harry murmured, "Right, I'll just stow my stuff and go outside for a bit of flying--"

"Don't be absurd. You're in this family as well." Snape pointed a finger at the tattered couch beneath the window, and waited until Harry and Draco had settled in. "Now, you've put me in an awkward position, to say the least, Draco," Snape began. "As Head of Slytherin I take my students' safety very seriously. You've endangered them, and I don't believe you really even comprehend that."

"Well if you take your students' safety seriously, then don't you want Pansy's killers to pay for what they did?" cried Draco. "I understand I endangered them; don't you understand they deserved it?"

"Leaving aside the issue of whether it's up to you to decide who deserves what, you in fact endangered far more than merely the conspirators. What about the first-years, Draco? Don't you think they'd be tempted enough by fairy cakes to ignore that note you forged? Some of them are still only eleven years old!"

Harry had a sudden, awful memory of Larissa piling her hands full of sweets.

Snape must have been thinking the same thing, for he went right on, "And what about the concentration you used? Did you take into account that someone half your size might decide to eat two, three, or even four fairy cakes? Did you think at all about the fact that for my loyal Slytherins could easily be misconstrued? What if students who had nothing to do with Pansy felt pressured to take a cake in an effort to have themselves classed as loyal? Your former name carries great weight in Slytherin, as you well know."

Draco began twisting his hands together. "I didn't think of that. I was just so angry, Severus!"

"So angry you didn't stop to think of Harry either, apparently," said Snape in a scathing tone. "He has access to the Slytherin common room, now--"

"Harry wouldn't eat a cake that said it was from Lucius!"

"No, but who better to blame for those cakes once students had fallen ill? Harry has an even better reason than you to hate Lucius, Draco!"

"Well, then, whoever was investigating would have just used that Quis vocaris spell to find out who the note was from!"

"But you didn't know that anything written within the confines of the castle would respond to that spell," Snape pointed out as he finally dropped down into an armchair facing the couch. "Hence you put your brother in danger."

"Oh, I did not! Even without that spell it would've been laughably simple to trace those cakes back to me and... oh."

"Yes," said Snape in a deep voice. "You didn't think this through very well. Had any students taken ill, you wouldn't be sitting here talking with me. You'd be talking with Aurors by now." Snape made a deprecating noise. "Or not by now, certainly, as I'm well aware how slow Venetimorica is to take effect. On wizards, at least. We're fortunate that Harry's elf-friend had a more rapid reaction. But you planned for your house mates to be home on holiday before they took sick, obviously."

Draco nodded as though wary of what Snape might say next. It turned out to be a good instinct.

"Did you spare even one second's thought to the fact that the Muggleborns' parents would have no idea in the world what might be wrong?" Snape roared. "The Muggleborns whose trust you claim to want?"

"The Muggleborns weren't supposed to eat them!"

"And we've already established why that was a particularly foolish presumption on your part, have we not?"

Draco scooted back into the corner of the couch. "All right, all right! It was a bad idea all around! I was just so... so angry!"

Snape breathed in deeply a few times. "Angry does not excuse behaviour like this, Draco. Now, you keep mentioning the Aurors. I'd like very much to know why you didn't think of them a good deal sooner. You surely must realise that had your horrid little plan succeeded, the Slytherins would be comparing notes upon their return from holiday, and it would be only moments before they identified those fairy cakes as the common element in their illnesses. And that the elves would immediately recall those distinctive cakes along with who ordered them. Why didn't you think of all that before you set this in motion?"

Draco looked even more shaken than before. "I... I don't know!"

"It isn't like you to overlook such weak links in a chain," Snape continued. "Why did you?"

"I don't know!" Draco cried again. "You know I have that impulse-control problem--"

"You certainly do, but this was not done on impulse," Snape corrected in a hard tone. "Venetimorica takes days to brew. So answer me, Draco. Why did you expose yourself to the risk of Azkaban? Why did you practically invite the Aurors back into your life?"

"I didn't think about Azkaban or the Aurors! I just wanted to--"

"What, Draco?" Snape softly pressed when Draco abruptly fell silent.

"I just wanted to see if you'd stick by me!" Draco yelled, red-faced. "Or maybe I just wanted to see that you wouldn't! I can't be perfect like Harry, and I figured you might as well know it!"

"Oh, Draco," Harry murmured. "That's just ridiculous. I'm not perfect."

"Don't I know it," snarled Draco. "But he thinks you are!"

"On the contrary, I recognise your brother's flaws perhaps better than you do, and I love him regardless," said Snape. "And the same is true of my regard for you."

"Oh, you still love me, do you?" Draco crossed his arms in front of his chest. "I tried to poison your precious Slytherins and you still love me. Sure you do."

"I do, though I am not so foolish as to expect you to believe it." Snape paused a moment, his dark eyes lost in thought. "The depth of your anger with Slytherin worries me, but I think what concerns me more is the self-destructiveness I see in all this. Draco... in your efforts to prove to yourself whether I would continue to claim you as my son or not, you have placed yourself at enormous risk." He held up a hand when Draco opened his mouth. "This time we managed to contain the damage, thanks entirely to Dobby the house-elf. But if you continue in this vein, you will commit a crime I cannot possibly save you from. It was luck alone that saved you this time, in fact."

"I won't do anything else," Draco said, grey eyes earnest. "I won't."

"I think you believe that," Snape murmured. "I think you intend the best, Draco. But I can't believe it, because I know you. Your rage will come stealing back, or your insecurities, and you'll find yourself doing something even more heinous than this in your quest for vengeance and affirmation."

"No, no--"

"And when you do," Snape went right on, "I will not stop loving you. But love won't keep you out of Azkaban , nor should it--"

"Why shouldn't it? You'd be in Azkaban right now, wouldn't you, if you hadn't been kept out because Dumbledore saw something worth redeeming in you!"

"We are not discussing me."

"Well I think we should," retorted Draco. "How many people have you poisoned, Severus?"

Harry's stomach churned. He didn't want to hear the answer to that.

"If you think I have not paid for my misdeeds you are sorely mistaken," Snape replied in a level voice. "Azkaban would have been a mercy compared to what Albus asked of me. Or did you think it was a simple matter to present myself to the Dark Lord as his faithful servant while I was working actively against him? And then, years after his supposed demise I was asked to take up my penance once again, an almost certain death sentence. But I undertook it without so much as a complaint, Draco."

Harry nodded, remembering the look on his father's face when the headmaster had asked him to resume his old role. Resolution and resignation.

"We must all pay for our misdeeds, Draco. You included," Snape continued. "And after all, it is your future at issue here. I do promise to visit you faithfully, whenever I possibly can, and I feel certain Harry will come often as well--"

Draco looked ill, his defiance from the moment before utterly wiped away. "But... I'm not going to Azkaban. You said I'd been lucky this time..."

"This time, yes." Snape sighed and rubbed his temples. "I am trying to help you see where this present course of yours will take you. I don't need a N.E.W.T. in Divination to ascertain the certain future in this case."

"I won't do anything like this again!"

"But I think you will. Do you know what makes me think that, Draco? Your utter lack of remorse. The only thing you regret is not planning this better. Venetimorica may not be lethal, but an overdose of it could well end some innocent child's life."

"They weren't innocent, not the ones I intended it for--"

"No, they were guilty," Snape acknowledged. "But now so are you. Their crime does not excuse yours. Revenge and justice are different things entirely, Draco. But this too is something you fail to grasp. You believe your anger casts all other arguments aside. Not even the fact that Dobby the house-elf took your foul poison moves you. I fear you have no empathy for anyone."

"I'll learn some then," Draco said, shivering. He looked down at his hands, now clasped in his lap, and Harry saw a teardrop fall onto his clenched fingers. "I am angry, Severus. Angry enough to do this, which I see now was utterly stupid... but I don't know how to stop feeling this way, or feeling like it's just a matter of time before you can't be bothered dealing with me. But I'll work on it, I will. And I'll do my lines. And I'll stop baiting Harry. And I'll let the Aurors figure out who killed Pansy and what to do about it. And I'll catch up with all my assignments, I promise!"

Snape ignored everything except Draco's I'll work on it claim. "Do you understand that you need help to deal with these feelings and the self-destructive tendencies that result from them?"

"I... nobody can help me, I don't think."

"Now that is simple egotism," Snape gently rebuked him. "Your problems are so singular that nobody can offer assistance? I rather doubt it. Which is not to say that your problems are not serious. Indeed, they are, and you do need help. Do you want it, though?"

"I..." Draco mutely nodded, his eyes clenched closed as though he were ashamed to admit it.

"And now we come to my own egotism," Snape continued, still in a voice so gentle that Harry felt soothed as well. "I thought that having a father--a real father--would be enough to heal the terrible wounds on your soul, but I see now that you need professional assistance."

"I... yes," Draco said, the words barely audible.

"You'll start receiving counselling straight away," murmured Snape. "Your therapist has requested that Harry and I attend the first session with you; I suspect she wishes to get a sense of the family dynamic. After that you'll have the majority of sessions in private, I believe."

Draco seemed dazed. "My... therapist?"

"It's all arranged," said Snape, nodding.

"So that's what you went out last night to see to?"

Their father nodded again. "There still remains, however, the matter of your punishment. I have thought a great deal on what might serve. More lines are almost pointless in your case, I believe, and you've no privileges left for me to revoke. But neither of those would be of much use, anyway. What you need most is to understand that what you did was wrong, and I don't think you can at this point. However, there is something that might help you learn to empathise with your would-be victims or rather, with the one victim you did garner. Something that might render you sorry--truly sorry, that is--that you ever hatched a scheme such as this."

Draco's brow was furrowed; he clearly had no idea what his father had in store for him.

But Harry did. Those instincts that Snape had praised were running at full tilt, and he suddenly knew exactly what the man was about to demand.

Harry went cold all over. So cold he was shivering. Snape flicked a glance his way, but other than that, didn't pause in the least as he waved his wand toward a crate in the corner.

The lid on the crate popped off and a plate of fairy cakes floated upwards then made their way through the air to settle onto the table, right in front of Draco.

Draco might not have Harry's instincts, but he could see what was plainly sitting in front of him. "I'm not eating one of those and you can't make me," he said at once, features hardening as he glared at his father.

"No, I can't make you," Snape said in a mild voice. "But if you will eat one, you might come to understand how terrible your crime truly was. If you will not eat one I doubt you'll ever experience any true remorse over this incident, therapy or no. And without remorse, Draco, you remain a menace to my students. Which leaves me with but one option."

"Oh, great," sneered Draco, his upper lip curled. "So that's it. I have to eat one or I get unadopted, which is basically a death sentence in the circumstances. Well, gee. I guess I'll have to poison myself, then. Thanks a whole fucking lot, Severus--"

"You misunderstand." Snape shook his head. "I'm not threatening you. Quite the contrary. You are my son and you will remain my son and I will do what my son needs, no matter the personal cost to me. It's all quite simple. If you will not eat a fairy cake, you'll never truly understand that what you did was wrong, and I won't be able to set any store by your declared good intentions. I won't be able to leave you alone in my quarters while I am teaching, which means I can't teach any longer." He paused to let that sink in. "I'll resign my position and we'll live here in Devon where I can adequately supervise you."

Draco's mouth fell open. "But I don't want to live out here in the middle of nowhere!"

"You'll live wherever I do," replied Snape. "Harry will of course continue on in the Tower, but I'm certain he'll come frequently to visit. Won't you, Harry?"

Harry nodded, almost dumbfounded by the sudden sharp turn in the conversation. He couldn't quite figure out what Snape was doing. Was this all manipulation, or did he mean every word he said?

Draco was evidently having similar thoughts. "Oh, you're just bluffing," he said, contempt lacing his tones. "You aren't going to resign! That's laughable, it is."

"You believed I would go abroad to save you from Azkaban," Snape replied, still in the same mild tone. "And indeed I would have. What makes you think I won't give up my job to save you from a future there?"

"Get a grip, Severus. I'm not fated to go to Azkaban!"

"You're more than halfway there already."

"I'll change!"

"But I don't believe that," Snape patiently repeated. "Not unless you acquire some empathy, which is far from a simple matter. It's painful to learn how wrong we have been, Draco. I know this from personal experience. I have been a Death Eater and you were raised to be one, and I know better than any man alive what you need if you are to acquire a new mindset. Therapy alone will not do it."

Obviously shaken by Snape's dire pronouncements, Draco still had enough presence of mind to object, "Oh, yeah? Well what do you think Wizard Family Services would have to say about a father telling his son to eat poison?"

"I think that nobody in Wizard Family Services has been a Death Eater, so they are in no position whatsoever to judge what a budding young one needs! I think they would protect and coddle you to your detriment in this case, just as that casewitch would prefer to see Harry unbruised, even though it would mean he cannot adequately defend himself from Voldemort!" Snape rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Draco, I have no doubt they would think I am wrong, but don't you see? They do not know you or the life you have lived up to this point. They do not know that absent extreme measures, Harry and I will face the ugly reality of visiting you in prison. But I do, and I will act accordingly, no matter what any Ministry adjunct office has to say!"

"If you make me eat a fairy cake, I'll tell them about it!"

Snape rose to his feet, his travelling robes swirling about him. "Aren't you listening to me? You either want to become a decent human being or you don't. I can't make you, Draco."

"You'll make me by threatening to quit your job!"

"I can't do my job if you are likely to attack my students. And you are more important to me than my job." Snape narrowed his black eyes as he walked over to face Draco. "As for telling Wizard Family Services, you'll do no such thing. They'd certainly remove you from my care, which may be what you want at this point, but they'd remove Harry as well. Angry as you are, I don't think you want to take his father away from him."

"No," admitted Draco in a low voice. He glanced down once at the fairy cakes. "I wish I'd never started this."

"I know," said Snape, settling a large hand on the boy's shoulder. "But you wish that now because you're faced with an unpleasant prospect. When you can wish you hadn't done it because it was a terrible thing to do, that's when you'll start to turn away from the spectre of Azkaban. But how are you to begin to appreciate just how evil this scheme of yours was? Suffering the consequence that you once wished upon others... that will instruct you as nothing else can."

Draco's eyes were bright with tears as he looked up at his father. "I suppose you would know. I... I told Harry once you'd been to Hell and back and could keep him from having to make the same journey."

"I'm trying to keep you from making that same journey as well." Snape lowered his voice. "You want to stop this now, Draco. You don't want to end up like me, with much, much worse stains on your soul. I did unspeakable things in Voldemort's service. Crimes for which I can never atone no matter how I try. I learned remorse too late. You can save yourself a lifetime of regret by learning it now."

"But... Venetimorica?" His lips trembling, Draco confessed, "I... I can't. I'm not brave like Harry--"

"You left your birth father and his way of life. Draco... I do know how much courage it takes to leave the Death Eaters."

"I didn't stand up to Lucius the way Harry stood up to him and the Dark Lord both!"

Snape chuckled then, which puzzled Harry until the man spoke. "Well, you don't have Gryffindor courage; I'll grant you that. Yours is the Slytherin variety, like mine. We don't see the point in standing up so that we can be knocked back down. We're more subtle than that. And there's a use for both kinds of courage, Draco. Where would your brother be now if I had stood up on Samhain and declared there'd be no needles used on Harry Potter?" Snape shook his head. "Letting Harry suffer that, Draco... it was a terribly hard thing, but it was the right thing to do. And so this as well."

Draco gulped, his eyes wide. "Harry..."

The other boy's tone spoke volumes. Harry, talk some sense into Severus. Harry, get me out of this. Harry, you can't let this happen to me. And against Draco's voice in his head, there was another one. A deeper one, telling him not to interfere.

Harry ignored both those voices and said what he really thought. "I want to be able to visit you at your house when we're grown up, not in Azkaban."

"You think I'm headed there too?" asked Draco in a pitiable voice.

Harry hated to just say yes, because he thought what Draco needed was some hope. "I think what you did here was really, really evil and you just don't get that right now," he said instead. "This reminds me of last year and the things you did to help Umbridge. Awful things. You have... a sort of darkness inside you, Draco. And Severus has lived in darkness and come out of it. He could help you learn to control it, if you'd let him. But if you don't let him..." Harry sighed, hating the truth. But Draco needed to hear it, probably more than he'd ever needed anything. "I think you might end up doing something like this again, yes. Whatever it takes for you to avoid that has got to be worthwhile."

Draco sat down and hung his head in his hands. "Then I guess I'll just stay out here. It's better than dosing myself with Venetimorica."

"It's your choice," Snape calmly said. "Though I think the other course of action provides far more hope for your future. You see, this way, Draco, you are refusing to accept responsibility for your actions. I will watch over you every second if that is what it takes to keep you from doing something as unutterably foolish as this again, but my watchfulness cannot change the kind of person you are at heart. Quite likely I can keep you from mischief until you are grown and on your own, but who will protect you from yourself then, Draco? I fear that if you take the easy road now, you will only delay the inevitable. The day will come again when you are just so angry that you strike out once more."

"And end in Azkaban," Draco finished, looking up.

"Draco, I brought up Azkaban because I thought it might clarify matters for you, but it isn't really what I wanted to communicate at all. Do you want to be a decent person? That's the crux of the matter, surely. You've taken Lucius for your model in more ways than one--"

"I have not!"

"Yes, you have," Snape sighed. "You don't even realise how much so, Draco. Your family expressed disdain for Walpurgis Black by removing his name from yours. And you did much the same when you took Snape for your surname. And this need for vengeance at any cost, that is very much like Lucius as well. He can't seem to let go of his anger against you. Do you want to be like him, Draco?"

"No," said the boy in a low voice. "I don't. I want to be a Snape. And that's why I took your name. It wasn't..."

"You learned growing up that names provide powerful weapons, particularly when used against family." Snape shrugged. "Draco, it doesn't matter to me precisely why you wanted my name. I merely want you to honour it. And this is not the way."

"I... no, it wasn't," said Draco, a little thickly. "But you can't quit your job, Severus. You have Harry to think of. He needs you there with him at Hogwarts."

Harry was about to say that was right, he did, but his father was already shrugging the objection away. "The separation would not be to my liking, but Harry and I would find a way to manage."

"You'd put me above Harry?"

"No, you idiot child. I'll do for you whatever you need, and I'll do exactly the same for him. And right now, he doesn't need me in quite the way you do."

"He can speak for himself," Harry dryly put in. "I've gone long enough without family."

"But you would survive the bare ten weeks until summer when we could be together again."

"Well yes, but--"

"No, no, no, you can't quit your job!" Draco insisted, his voice sounding off-kilter. "If you suddenly resign, Family Services will come poking around to question why! You're well-enough known that it will get reported! And you're supposed to support us and set a good example and what if they think you're not? They might start investigating and realise that rugby story was a front, and then they'd unadopt both of us straight away from you!"

Harry couldn't let a statement like that go unchallenged. "Draco, Severus was your father before you had a certificate to prove it. You can't be unadopted, not where it counts. And neither can I."

"If they tried you'd still end up hating me," Draco said, his voice dull. "And if you hate me, then I'm a dead man."

"If they tried I'm sure I'd blame you and be angry," Harry corrected. "But I wouldn't hate you. Look, in a normal family people get angry and they get over it. I'm angry now, if you want the truth. Does it look like I'm throwing you to the wolves the way Lucius did?" Grabbing Draco's hand, Harry held tight to it. "Don't you get it yet? I l--"

"Stop saying that!" Draco's hand began shaking as though palsied. "I can't say it back, Harry! How do you think that makes me feel?"

"I don't care if you can't say it back!" Harry tried to think of how to explain. "Look, I've been around Ron a lot and he takes his family pretty much for granted. It's something he's always had. But I've never had a brother before and I like it and I'm not going to let anyone take that away from me, all right? Not even you. You're stuck with me." Harry glanced at his father. "And him. You think he cares what Family Services has to say? You're his son no matter what!"

"No, I don't think he cares what Family Services has to say. That's pretty fucking obvious." Draco made a noise like a half-strangled sob. "Oh, Merlin, I guess I'd better... but that icing looks so putrid. I think I'd rather live in the wilds of Devon forever than..." He raised his gaze to Harry's. "But you think I should?"

"I..." Harry couldn't say he did, not as bluntly as that. Venetimorica was awful, awful stuff, but wasn't a term in Azkaban much worse, and longer-lasting as well? And if the one could save Draco from the other, wouldn't the suffering be worth it, no matter how bad it became?

"Don't do this because Harry says to," urged Snape, kneeling and taking both Draco's hands in his, though that meant making Harry let go of the one he was holding. "And for Merlin's sake, don't do it on account of my job. Do it for yourself, Draco, because you know you need to set your feet upon another path, and this is the first step. The hardest, perhaps, but necessary."

Draco's skin was tinged green by then. "Severus... I... I don't want to eat one of those... things."

Snape said nothing.

After a moment, Draco swallowed thickly. "I... I suppose I will, though." He sat back and leaned against the back of the couch. "Guess it's just as well I was too upset to eat much breakfast, though I can't say as I'm hungry now, either. Maybe it could wait until later?"

"Draco."

"I know, I know," said the boy, his face growing even greener. "It's not going to get any easier. The longer I put it off the worse I'll feel." He gave a dry laugh that sounded far more like a cackle. "Though that's not really true, is it? I'll feel a lot worse after I eat the thing. Well, after it starts to... work, anyway."

Harry couldn't stand it any longer. "I'm sure you don't really have to eat one. Just being willing to is enough, isn't it? Dad?"

Snape shook his head.

"Oh, come on, he really is sorry now--"

"Stay out of this, if you would, Harry," said Snape.

"Better do what Dad says," said Draco, shaking his head. "He isn't going to budge."

Harry opened his mouth to reply, but the shock of what Draco had said robbed him of words. Better do what Dad says. Draco never called Snape that, never. Perhaps, in some horribly twisted way, this incident was helping Draco finally understand that he couldn't push Snape and Harry away no matter what he did.

Nodding, Harry sat back.

Draco was still staring at the platter of cakes, looking about like he'd pass out on the spot. He cleared his throat several times, then croaked in a voice so weak it was barely audible, "I... I think I need a glass of water to... uh, wash it down..."

"You may have one if you wish, but I seriously doubt you want to put anything unnecessary into your stomach today."

"Uh... yeah, that's a good point..."

Harry wasn't really sure Draco was going to do it, not until actually he reached out and took a fairy cake between his fingers. Dobby had been so careful not to allow Harry to touch them, and Snape had avoided contact also, which told Harry that the poison could be absorbed through the skin. Draco knew that too, Harry was sure.

Lifting it up, Draco opened his mouth and visibly winced, then lapped out his tongue and swiped it against the icing, barely touching it. "Uhhhgh," he moaned, shaking all over.

"It tastes bad?" Harry asked, all sympathy.

"No, but that just makes it worse." Shuddering even more, Draco opened his mouth wider and took a bite. Harry thought he'd never seen anything so awful as the sight of his brother chewing and swallowing, over and over, deliberately poisoning himself. At least his victims wouldn't have known what was coming, but Draco did. It was a wonder he could eat the thing, knowing what he did about Venetimorica.

Draco slowly peeled back the gilded paper clinging to the sides of the cake as he ate, until he was down to nothing but crumbs, and Snape gently said, "That will do, Draco."

Draco suddenly moaned, clutching at his abdomen so fiercely that he wrinkled the lightweight robes he was wearing.

"I'll help you to the loo--" Harry started to say, but Snape interrupted him.

"If things were that simple Venetimorica wouldn't have such a fearsome reputation. Draco won't be able to sick up until it's been completely metabolised. In fact he'll be perfectly fine until late this evening."

Draco shuddered. "Best not to think about it, I suppose. So then, I... I'll just get back to my lines until..."

"I don't really believe that writing the same line over and over will supply much distraction," Snape gently inserted. "Actually, I thought you might like to spend the day helping us renovate the cottage."

"Renovate...?"

Snape pointed his wand and banished every last trace of the fairy cakes before he answered, and cast a few heavy-duty cleaning spells as well. "We'll all come here for the summer, and while I don't mind sleeping on a transfigured divan in the short term, I would prefer to have a proper bedroom when we return here in June. Harry thought a second bathroom would be a good idea as well. How are your construction spells, Draco?"

"Uh... I don't actually know any."

"You will after today."

"You're going to let me do magic?"

"Supervised only, and you'll return my grandfather's wand to me when we finish for the day."

Draco nodded eagerly, though he thought to ask, "How much construction can we do in a day, though? That's large scale transfiguration, or conjuring perhaps. I think we'd be lucky to erect even one wall."

"Ah. Well it will doubtless take more than a single day, though you might consider that we have Harry to help us."

"Wanded magic," murmured Draco, nodding.

"Harry and I suspect he'll have fewer episodes of accidental magic if he routinely exercises his dark powers," added Snape as he drew a wand from his robes and handed it to Draco. "So, shall we begin?"

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Construction spells turned out to be devilishly tricky to master. Harry, of course, had the added burden of devising Parseltongue versions of everything. He was glad he'd brought Sals along, though he had to apologise to her for leaving her as a bracelet for so long. He'd forgotten about her during that long, tense confrontation between his father and brother.

Sals said she didn't mind, though. She wasn't aware of anything except a dull sensation of warmth back in the dungeons, and then another one in Devon when Snape had uncharmed her.

When lunch time rolled around Draco didn't eat. No point, he said with a grimace. Harry found something to respect in the fact that Draco wasn't whinging on and on about how sick he was going to get. He joined Harry and Snape at the table for a few minutes, sipping a little water because he said his throat was dry. Then he went back outside to continue casting, his borrowed wand pointed at the bare earth they'd cleared earlier. Harry watched him through the window as he steadily conjured granite to form a floor, bit by painstaking bit. He'd only managed to create a section about the size of his hand before he stopped and leaned against an exterior wall, breathing heavily.

"In the Potions classroom that day you coated the floor with marble with just one spell and it didn't seem to tax you at all. Is your magic that much stronger than Draco's? Or is it hard for him to cast with a new wand? Or is it the Venetimorica starting to make him sick?"

Snape sprinkled a bit of balsamic vinegar on his salad. "I've noticed that he still needs to settle into using a new wand, yes. And magical strength often increases with maturity--unless one has direct access to dark powers," he added with a glint in his eye. "But more than that, my marbleising spell wasn't intended to last for decades, you understand."

"So its not the poison, not yet?" Harry worried his lip with his teeth and pushed his lunch away. He hadn't eaten much at all, probably because he couldn't stop thinking about what Draco was facing.

"Not yet. A sudden coma will accompany the onset of the Venetimorica beginning to work."

Harry lowered his voice, though Draco likely couldn't hear them. "Don't you think he should be resting? I mean, he didn't sleep at all last night and here he's doing all this strenuous magic and wearing himself out. Shouldn't he be saving his strength?"

"Actually, no. The coma will last until Draco's magical and physical energies are drained to a very low point. Going into it already weakened will shorten the duration. Otherwise I'd have told him last night to get some sleep instead of doing his lines."

Harry's stomach churned a bit as the implications of that came clear. "So last night, you knew already that you were going to make him eat a fairy cake?"

"I did not make him," Snape corrected, frowning.

"You know what I mean. You didn't give him much choice."

"Actually, I fully expected him to watch me resign." Snape shrugged. "Which brings us to another matter. Had I known Draco would choose his just desserts, so to speak, I would have offered at the outset for you to remain behind at Hogwarts. Albus will be in residence throughout the holiday, so you will be perfectly safe. If you wish to return--"

"You think Draco needs you to himself?"

"No, but you are not his father, Harry. There's no need for you to be present for this ordeal."

"Do you want me to leave? I offered to let you talk to him alone, you know, and you said no."

"I don't want you to leave," Snape insisted. "Nor does Draco, I feel certain."

"Then I'm staying. We're all in this together," said Harry, though he couldn't help but ask, "You really think it's going to do him good to go through this awful thing?"

"I do," said Snape in tones of finality.

Harry wasn't so sure. He wasn't sure of anything, actually, except that he was glad he wasn't the one having to rear Draco. He wouldn't have known what to do about an awful situation like this one. "Well I hope you at least brought a bezoar along, in case it gets too awful for him to bear--"

Snape shook his head. "Ineffective against Venetimorica."

"The antidote, then--"

"There's no antidote."

Harry's mouth dropped open. "Oh, God. You were lying about needing clover blossoms and eel skin and the sap of a stunted hickory tree."

"I needed to make Draco tell us the truth."

"Well that's a pretty strange way to go about it, isn't it, lying your head off so that he'll be honest?" Harry felt his face start to heat as the rest of it came rushing back to him. "And while we're on it, I didn't appreciate being put in the middle like that. Harry, I absolutely insist you eat that fairy cake... You're lucky I didn't kick you under the table!"

Snape raised an eyebrow. "Did you believe even for an instant that I would let you come to harm?"

"No," Harry grudgingly admitted. "I knew for sure you'd banish the stupid cake but were waiting until the last second to make Draco confess. I'm not stupid. But I still didn't appreciate it! You could have made him tell the truth without involving me!"

"As it turned out, I could not have," Snape quietly returned, pushing aside his plate as though his own appetite was faulty as well. "You saw him in the lab. Even after I'd proven he must have brewed the poison, he was still intent on claiming the elves were the ones who put it to use. The only reason he finally gave up his lies was to stop me from displaying to you the spectacle of him tainting the fairy cakes."

Well, that was true enough, Harry thought, but it didn't make him feel much better. He crossed his arms as he sat there, and glared across the table at his father.

"Harry, I regret that scene at dinner last night, more than you can know. But I felt I had no choice. I had to know if Draco's loyalty to himself would exceed his loyalty to you."

"Oh..." Harry's arms relaxed a bit. "I thought you were just trying to make him confess."

"That was important, certainly, but far more vital was the question of whether he would protect his secret at the cost of your well-being."

Harry leaned on the table then, and met his father's gaze. "And if he had?"

Snape frowned. "I don't know. I'm exceedingly grateful it didn't come to that. I can only say that had Draco not acted to shield you from the Venetimorica, I would probably believe he could not be rehabilitated."

"I'm glad he stopped me," Harry whispered. "But for all that, he's... more messed up than I thought, I guess."

"Yes, I believe he is." Snape nodded, the motion sharp, as though it pained him to admit it. Or maybe what hurt was his realisation that he should have got Draco some professional help a long time ago.

Harry finished up his orange juice. " I didn't know there were wizard therapists, really. I guess I thought when you bought that Muggle book after Samhain, it must mean that wizards weren't writing about adolescent trauma." He smiled a little. "Because I remember what you said about the leukaemia book the Dursleys had. It didn't seem like you had a whole lot of respect for Muggle writers. But I figure Draco's therapist must be a wizard, right? Otherwise Draco won't really be able to talk freely, and some of his problems won't make very good sense... what?"

Snape cleared his throat. "There aren't a great many wizard therapists, Harry, but I did manage to find a highly-regarded squib psychiatrist who specialises in adolescents, actually." He paused, almost as if he was waiting for Harry to come to some realisation, and when Harry said nothing, went on, "Arabella Figg recommended her."

"Arabella Figg..." Harry nodded. "Oh. You're talking about Dudley's therapist, aren't you? What was her name... Marta? Marsha?"

"Dr. Marsha Goode."

"Good?" Harry couldn't help but chuckle. Well, maybe it was an omen. Steyne had been a nasty piece of work, so Goode had to work out all right, didn't she?

"You don't have any qualms about the matter?"

Harry didn't see why he should. "Well, she worked wonders with Dudley, didn't she? Say, is Dudley still seeing her?"

Snape's expression went slightly sour. "I inquired about that myself and was treated to a lengthy lecture on ethics and confidentiality." His gaze locked onto Harry's. "I mention qualms, however, because the good doctor would like to meet with you as well."

Confused, Harry just shrugged. "Yeah, you mentioned that. But I'm happy to help Draco. Whatever he needs."

Snape cleared his throat. "That's all well and good, but I suspect what Dr. Goode has in mind is to discuss the likelihood of your needing therapy of your own."

Oh. Harry suddenly felt like he'd taken a Bludger to the stomach. "You said I was messed up too. Do you think I need... uh..."

"Harry, Dr. Goode has spent over a year counselling Dudley. I'm certain she's heard some rather distressing anecdotes about how you were treated as a child. She also reads the Prophet, and has long been aware of your special place in the wizarding world. It's little wonder if she questions how well you are coping with the juxtaposition of so many different sources of stress."

"You mean she thinks I must be a basket case," Harry dryly interpreted that. "But I hardly care what she thinks. What do you think? That's what matters to me."

"I think..." Snape regarded him for a long moment. "You have dealt remarkably well with your travesty of a childhood and all that has happened since."

Inexplicably, Harry felt tears pooling in his eyes, because he didn't deserve praise like that. He wasn't dealing with Sirius' death well, because he wasn't dealing with it, full stop. He tried not to think about his godfather, ever. It was just too horribly painful, even if it did Sirius a disservice.

When it came to Sirius, Harry knew, he wasn't brave at all. Or Gryffindor. And Sirius would probably be disappointed in him.

Snatching out his wand, Harry cleared away all their dishes and said they'd better go outside again and help Draco.

Snape said nothing in reply.

"Coming?" Harry pressed, glancing back.

Snape's dark eyes glimmered as slowly nodded.

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After an afternoon spent working on construction, with very little progress to show for it, Harry felt pretty fed up. "There are easier ways of building, you know," he told his father and brother. "Why don't we go into the nearest town and buy some bricks to make the floor? It can't be that hard to mix up mortar and glue them together--"

"If you'd had any sort of proper wizarding upbringing," Draco began to drawl in his most superior tones, "then you'd know, wouldn't you--"

"That sounds remarkably like baiting to me," interrupted Snape in a level voice.

The blond boy abruptly fell silent. "Sorry," he said after a moment, glancing quickly at Harry. "I'll work on not saying things like that. Anyway, maybe you could get your dark powers working here and do the whole floor with one spell?"

Harry didn't think he'd heard the last about his Muggle-raised heritage, but if Draco was going to try to curtail his rude comments, that was something, at least. "I'm a bit worried I might cover the whole meadow in granite if I'm not careful."

"Delimit an area before you begin." Draco shrugged.

"I still haven't figured out the Parseltongue for give-me-granite, let alone give-me-just some," Harry pointed out. Complaining wasn't going to get it done, though, so Harry started talking once more to Sals.

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When it was time for dinner, Snape took his grandfather's wand away from Draco. That was just as well, Harry thought. Venetimorica could cause delusions; there was no telling what Draco might cast under its influence.

Snape asked Harry to see to their meal, which basically meant fishing things out of their magic crates. While Harry did that, Snape went into the bedroom with Draco. Probably they were talking about the poison and what Draco could expect, though Harry couldn't see a whole lot of sense in that discussion. He was positive Draco had researched the matter thoroughly and knew exactly what he was in for.

Draco didn't come out for dinner; Snape said the other boy was too tired and had decided to rest.

"It's starting then," Harry whispered, looking out the window at the setting sun. He shoved away his meal. "That's it. I can't eat."

"You didn't eat much lunch," said Snape as he began twirling cream-flecked fettuccine around his fork.

"So?"

"The best thing you can do for your brother is stay strong yourself. It's likely to be a long, difficult night."

"And day, and possibly another night." Harry stabbed at his own noodles and then half-heartedly ate some. "Fine. I know you're right."

The Potions Master poured water from a carafe into two of the crystal goblets Harry had found in a crate. The third one sat empty at Draco's place, just staring at Harry until he couldn't stand it. Grabbing the carafe, he poured a measure out for Draco as well. Stupid, pointless gesture and he knew it, but he didn't like the feeling that Draco was being left out.

"That's why you started on your room today, isn't it?" Harry suddenly realised. "It wasn't just to tire Draco. You wanted him to feel like he was still a part of the family!"

"True," Snape admitted. "This incident can only exacerbate his sense of himself as less worthy of my love than you are. I thought excluding him from our project, even to do his lines or schoolwork, would be inadvisable to say the least."

"Well, let's go take our food in there and have a picnic of sorts then." That plan was short-lived, though. Draco had already fallen into a coma. Harry sat on his own bed with his plate on his lap, and finished his meal there while watching his brother.

"You really do have quite a loyal sense of family yourself," Snape said from his position leaning against the door jamb. "But there's nothing you can do for him at the moment." He crooked a finger. "Come play chess with me."

Harry shook his head.

"Harry," Snape interrupted, "that wasn't a request. Do as I say and come play chess. I don't want you brooding any more than I wanted Draco to, earlier."

"This isn't brooding. I want to watch for when--"

"When your brother needs assistance, we will know."

Words which proved to be prophetic, Harry later thought.

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It started with an ear-splitting scream.

Through the open bedroom door Harry saw Draco sitting straight up in bed, his hands reaching out as though to shove somebody away. His mouth was wide open, his eyes so wild the silver in them looked molten.

"No!" he shouted, pushing out again as though trying to move the immovable. "Go! Run!"

Harry was at Draco's narrow bed in a flash, Snape beside him.

Grabbing one of his brother's hands as it madly kept shoving away at nothing, Harry held it tight. "It's all right, Draco."

But it wasn't, for in that moment Draco turned those wild eyes on him. "Harry, no! Go! Now, Harry, now!" And with an almighty yank, Draco pulled his hand free from Harry's grip and reached out to thrust Harry away from him. "Go! Run! You aren't ready for him, Harry! Get the bloody hell out of here!"

Harry lay sprawled, inanely thinking that Draco could really shove hard when he wanted to.

"Go, go, GO!" Draco started screaming, the word a litany that seemed to sear straight through Harry. "Get away! Go!"

He lunged off the bed without warning, launching himself at Harry, and would have landed atop him if not for their father's speedy intervention. Arms stretched wide, Snape grabbed hold of Draco and propelled him forcefully back to the bed.

"Severus, do something!" Draco screamed, the sound that time so high-pitched and shrill it was a wonder the windows didn't break. "Merlin's beard, he's going to be a Gryffindor, isn't he? Get out of here, Harry!"

Snape looked over his shoulder as he grappled with his son, who was flailing to be let loose. "Harry, perhaps you should leave and close the door. I think that will quiet him. Somewhat."

Harry nodded and left, closing the door as his father had said before slumping onto the couch and hanging his head in his hands. Random thoughts flitted through his mind. Draco throwing something at his bedroom door because Harry had said to Ron and Hermione that he didn't trust him. Draco saying he couldn't tell Harry his problem because Harry was his problem.

Draco, almost paralyzed with dread when he'd finally admitted that he'd been at the Death Eater meeting on Samhain.

And now this.

Draco living out his worst fears under the horrible influence of Venetimorica.

The poison had other effects of course--horrendous ones--but the primary magical one was to force the victim into a place where their most horrible, mind-shattering nightmares seemed to become the stark reality right before their eyes.

Harry had known what was coming, in a sense, but he'd thought Draco's worst fear would be something else entirely. Lucius throwing him headfirst into a pit of snakes, perhaps. Or Nagini eating him. Or being tortured for information, Lucius casting that spell to deliver a wizard's beating, over and over.

He hadn't known that Draco's worst fear would be for Harry.

The screams in the bedroom continued unabated, mindless pleas for Harry to get out before it was too late; Draco didn't seem to have noticed that Harry had got out.

And then the screams changed to half-gulping noises and broken sobs that made last night's tears seem a mere drop in a cauldron. Draco was screaming still, but this time in anguish, Harry's name the only distinguishable word. Thumping noises punctuated the distraught boy's voice, as though he was trying his best to leap off the bed and Snape was restraining him.

The noise of fabric ripping made Harry think Draco must have started tearing at his bed curtains.

And through it all, Snape's voice. A constant, steady drone telling Draco that Harry wasn't in danger, that Harry was fine and Draco would be feeling better soon. But Draco wasn't listening; he was only wailing in incoherent grief, like everything that mattered in the whole world had just been ripped straight out of his hands.

Harry wrapped his arms around himself and rocked like a small child trying to comfort itself as the horrible noises went on and on.

He couldn't have said how long it lasted. It seemed like hours before the sounds died off and Snape opened the door, looking much as if he'd been wrestling with an enraged hippogriff all this while.

Harry looked blearily up, his eyes stinging like they were bloodshot. It reminded him, anyway, that he was overdue for his elixir. Fishing it from his pocket, he wordlessly extended it to Snape, who applied it in equal silence.

Resisting the urge to rub his eye, Harry put his glasses back on. "How is he?"

Snape dropped down into a chair and pushed his hair out of his face. "Comatose again. For the moment." He took a few minutes to simply recover, his breathing ragged, nodding in wordless thanks when Harry got up and brought him over a glass of cool water. "You do realise what that was all about, I trust?"

Harry weakly nodded. Snape had told him that Draco felt he needed Harry on his side, but Harry hadn't really understood how deep that feeling went. "Draco thought I was in danger and he was trying to save me."

"At first. Then he thought you'd died and the war was certainly lost and Lucius was going to skin him alive. Literally."

"Oh, God." Harry thickly swallowed. "You tried to tell me, but I... I didn't really get that he felt as dependent as all that on my..."

"Patronage," Snape dryly said. "And it's no wonder you didn't understand. You don't view yourself as the vanguard of the Light. Not as he does."

"I don't want to be some... hero he clings to for safety!" Harry ground out, digging his fingers into the fraying fabric of the sofa. "I just want to be his brother."

"You are that to him as well, I'm sure." Snape sighed, the noise of it exhausted. "But the reason he's so loyal to you is the former, of course."

"Of course," said Harry, more bitterly than he'd intended.

Snape stared at him for a long, considering moment. "Give him time," he finally said. "Something a casewitch once said to me, if you recall."

Harry was hardly going to forget. He'd called himself Snape's adoptee instead of his son, and instead of telling him how horribly hurtful that was, Snape had just gone on loving him as he was, flaws and all. Well, after one short sneered comment on the matter. Snape wasn't perfect, either.

Understanding what his father meant, Harry relaxed his fingers. "All right. I'll just keep on being his brother until he can see me that way. Really see me that way."

For that was what Snape had done for him, of course. He'd been a father before Harry had been ready to be a son.

"When Draco wakes up is it going to start all over again?"

Snape sighed. "Most likely yes. Assuming he brewed the poison correctly, though I have very little doubt of that."

"Yeah, Draco's good at Potions," said Harry morosely. "I guess it's not a coincidence that he decided to get even with Slytherin by using one. I think it was a way of thumbing his nose at you."

Snape merely shrugged, which told Harry the man had thought of that already. "Shall we finish our game?" And when Harry shook his head, "It will be hours before Draco wakes next. You should do something to occupy your mind."

"Well, I've lost that one already," Harry said, pointing to the chessboard. "Let's start another, then."

Harry lost twice more before they heard another noise from the bedroom.

Not screaming, not this time. Something more like whimpers.

Snape went to Draco's bedside while Harry hung back near the door, but this time it didn't seem Draco's fears were centred on his brother. Neither was he awake. He was thrashing in bed, caught in the grip of a nightmare, reciting a babble of Latin that didn't make any sense.

Then he switched to English, swearing that he'd try harder, that he'd get better marks next time. "Better than the Mudblood, yes, yes," he panted. "I promise, Father. I promise--"

And then the screams did start again, and Draco came awake for them, scrabbling up to hold tight to a bedpost as he wailed and wailed for his father to stop.

A wizard's beating, Harry realised, shaking as he watched it.

Snape tried to help. Yanking Draco away from the bedpost, he pulled him into a tight embrace and simply held him, but Draco was beyond all consolation. Caught in the grip of the poison, he kept screaming on and on, flinching violently as though his back and sides and legs were being flayed wide open.

And then his screams became truly horrendous.

Clearly, something else was happening inside his mind, something so awful that he began shaking all over, fighting Snape's hold as though he was possessed. He managed to work an arm free at one point. Reaching up, he tried to pull Snape's hair out by the roots.

Snape swung it out of reach and pinned the boy's arm to his body once more.

Then Draco went still. Completely still, not even breathing. Harry thought he'd lapsed back into a coma again. Or perhaps fainted, because the boy's legs suddenly couldn't support him. Draco slumped against his father, almost falling, but Snape easily scooped him up and carrying him, strode out to the living room where he sat down in a chair, Draco cradled across his lap.

Harry sat on the edge of the sofa, biting his lip as he watched. "Is he all right?"

Using one hand to brush Draco's fringe aside, Snape felt his son's forehead. "We're past the first stage."

Harry knew what that meant. There shouldn't be any more delusions; no more reliving of fears. But now the poison was going to wreak physical havoc on Draco's body, something that was beginning already, for the boy was starting to shiver all over, his teeth actually chattering.

"C- C- Cold," he stammered, eyes clenched as though the chills sweeping through him hurt. He started burrowing more closely against Snape, obviously trying to draw warmth from him.

Snape held him closer and said nothing except, "Blankets, Harry," when Draco began trying to work his hands in between the buttons on his father's shirt, as though seeking warm skin to chase out the cold.

Once Draco was wrapped warmly from head to toe, only his face peeking out, he seemed to calm. Leaning against Snape, his cheek pressed to the man's chest, he began breathing normally again.

Eyes closed, he drifted into sleep, held securely in his father's arms.

Harry sat down again, his brow furrowing into thought. "Why did you want blankets instead of a warming charm?"

Snape glanced up, his black eyes tired. "Applying magic to the symptoms will only prolong them. Many poisons are thus."

"Is that why Madam Pomfrey's spells to stop your bleeding failed? When you were poisoned on your birthday?" When Snape nodded, Harry went on, "But she had an antidote handy?"

"Why would you think that?"

Thinking his father sounded annoyed, Harry was going to leave this discussion for another time, but Snape prompted him with an intense glance.

"Well, Dobby said that Madam Pomfrey said you were a good Potions Master."

"She said it was good I was a Potions Master," Snape corrected, moving to shift Draco to a more comfortable position. "Long exposure to dangerous potions ingredients has given me some measure of resistance to their effects. Hence, the contents of that chocolate cauldron were debilitating but not life-threatening."

"Why didn't you..." Harry broke off, deciding it wasn't the right time.

But Snape was having none of it. "You want to know why I didn't tell you? I wanted you to feel safe at Hogwarts, Harry. You'd agreed to the adoption primarily in order to secure the warding, which will fail if I should die, you realise. You had nightmares enough to surmount, without fearing that poison directed at me could leave you defenceless."

"Yeah, but as your son didn't you think I had a right to know that sort of thing?" When his father didn't answer that, Harry prompted, "It's not like I didn't give you plenty of openings. How many times did I go on about you needing to eat? You could have told me why you were reluctant."

"I could have, yes." Snape had one arm beneath Draco's shoulders. He used the other to rub the side of his nose. "You were already critical of how I was handling Mr Weasley's punishment, Harry. I didn't care to give you any further cause to doubt my judgment, and I thought if you knew about the chocolate cauldron..." Snape's voice went very quiet.

Harry earnestly leaned forward. "Look, I know it's easy to blame yourself when things go wrong. I do a lot of that, but it's really out of place this time. It's not your fault someone slipped you poison. I bet it was tasteless and odourless and there was no way you could have known."

Snape smiled slightly, the expression rather strained. "I suppose I should have had more faith in you, but the prospect of losing your respect was simply too daunting."

"Oh, Dad..." Harry reached out under the blankets wrapping Draco and patted his father's knee. "If watching you convince my brother to eat a poisoned cake didn't make me think badly of you--and it didn't, all right?--then why would this?"

"It goes back to Occlumency," Snape sighed. "To the things I taught you about hiding your true thoughts by letting Voldemort see harmless memories. How do you think he knew I received a chocolate cauldron every January ninth? I let him see it, along with my genuine annoyance that Albus insists on marking the date. I embellished the memory with disdain, and let him think it one more reason I had to despise the headmaster of Hogwarts. I saw no harm in his knowing about my annual birthday present. But as I came to learn, I had misjudged the matter."

"You are handing me weapons," Harry murmured, nodding. When his father flinched, Harry patted the man's knee again. "It's all right. You didn't know you were."

"True, but there you were, vulnerable without your magic and utterly dependent on me. A responsibility I took more seriously than you can imagine. Perhaps when you are a father yourself... at any rate, though, I was hardly eager to give you cause to doubt not only my judgment but also everything I had taught you about Occlumency. For it was my failure there that led to my being poisoned."

Draco stirred, his eyelashes fluttering open.

Harry went to kneel alongside his brother so he could see him better. "How are you doing?"

"I dreamed I was an icicle..." Weakly lifting up his head, Draco glanced toward the windows facing east. "Is that daybreak? Was I sleeping?"

He seemed to have already forgotten he'd talked of having dreamt.

"Yeah, the sun is rising," said Harry as he pushed one of the blankets away from Draco's head. Beneath it, the boy's hair was soaked with sweat.

Draco looked at Harry, his eyes fever-bright. "You're up early..."

"We didn't ever go to sleep."

The other boy's forehead wrinkled like he was thinking hard. "We?"

"Yeah, Dad and I."

Draco nodded, the motion sort of bleary. "Uh, all right. But uh... where is Severus, anyway? He... he wouldn't leave me, or at least I don't think so..."

"You're sitting on me," Snape announced in a deep voice.

Draco jerked wildly, his face flushing red, and tried to get off his father's lap, but wrapped as he was in all those blankets, he didn't have much chance unless he rolled off, and Snape clearly wasn't going to let that happen.

"Relax," he advised. "If Venetimorica runs true to form you're going to need your strength."

His struggles subsiding, Draco muttered, "Well you could put me in bed, you know. I'm not a baby."

"Harry," Snape directed. "Perhaps a freshening charm on Draco's bed would be a good idea."

When Harry went in, the bedcovers were all askew and drenched in sweat. Drops of blood stained them in place, telling Harry more clearly than words just how violently Draco had thrashed while caught in the grip of his delusions. Shuddering, Harry got the bed back in shape to be used.

When he returned to the living room, Draco was moaning that he wanted a freshening charm applied to him, and Snape was patiently explaining that the Venetimorica would object to any magical remedies applied to his person.

"You can have a vanishing bucket when you begin to vomit later--"

"Oh, thanks," groaned Draco, the sound of it thick. "A shower then. I need a shower..."

By then the blankets were unwrapped enough that Draco could shift free of them and try to stand up. Try being the operative word. He toppled straight over and ended up on his hands and knees, his head barely an inch from the edge of the low table where the chessboard still sat.

"Would you allow us to take care of you?" asked Snape in a caustic tone. "You aren't going to have reliable gross motor control for hours yet."

Draco managed to sit up, but after that he sighed. "All right. You can take care of me, then."

Snape scooped him up and deposited him on his bed. "Now, did you want a shower or not? I'll conjure a stool for you to sit on, but you'll have to leave the door open all the same."

"Yeah, yeah," Draco groaned, though he was nodding.

While Snape helped Draco into the shower, Harry found clean pyjamas for his brother to change into, then went to pour himself some orange juice. A few minutes later Snape came out and announced that Draco was fast asleep and would probably stay that way most of the day.

The Potions Master's face was grim. "And then he'll get so sick he'll wish he'd died in his sleep, but after that passes, this will finally be over."

The acid taste of the orange juice surged up his throat when Harry thought of what Dobby's book had said about the last stage of Venetimorica poisoning.

"Are you all right?"

Harry thickly swallowed. "Yeah."

"You should get some rest," said Snape, waving his wand at the couch to transfigure it into a bed.

"Out here?"

"I plan to sleep here. It's been a long night for all of us." Casting another spell, Snape continued, "An alarm charm. I'll wake up if Draco is in distress, though I'll almost certainly waken before he does, in any case."

Nodding, Harry padded into the bedroom and crawled fully dressed into his bed.

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Harry and his father were both awake for lunch, though Draco slumbered on and on. It was late afternoon before the other boy surfaced from his long sleep. At least this time it wasn't hallucinations waking him, Harry thought, though some part of him wondered if Venetimorica was actually more vicious in the beginning or in the end.

Because this was ugly, too.

"I need that bucket!" they heard Draco yelp from the bedroom.

Throwing aside the book he'd been trying to read, Harry rushed to his brother's side. Snape was there before him, having Apparated straight through the wall. He'd also summoned the bucket, a wooden one bound with strips of iron. Really, it looked like it would leak worse than a sieve, but of course a magic bucket didn't need to be watertight.

Draco grabbed it with both hands when Snape held it out, and all but plunged his face inside as a gurgling, retching noise seemed to rush up from his belly.

Snape immediately left the room, urging Harry to do the same with his eyes. Decorum, of course. They left Draco alone, the door open in case he needed help, and began loudly playing another game of chess.

How long it went on, Harry couldn't have said. He'd been sick a few times and could remember that horrible feeling of despair it gave you when it seemed like you'd never stop sicking up.

At one point Draco gave off an awful sound, almost as if he was strangling. When Harry and Snape rushed in, he was kneeling on the floor, his balled fists pressing deeply into his midsection, his hair a wild tangled mess, sweatier than before. "Something's wrong!" he cried, gasping for breath. "There's nothing left to sick up, and I just keep--"

That was all he got to say before his stomach twisted into knots once more, sending him bending down over the bucket, ugly noises echoing through the room.

That time, Snape stayed.

When Draco levered himself back up, his eyes were watering. "It won't stop! It just keeps going-- Something's gone wrong, Severus!" Pausing, he heaved in a breath, his eyes wild with panic.

"Draco, it's just the dry heaves," Harry said, wanting to comfort Draco but knowing that the other boy wouldn't want to be touched. "Haven't you had those before?"

"Oh, please," sneered Draco, though it was a feeble sort of sneer, considering the boy was chalk white and shaking. "The minute I'd feel ill at home I'd get a potion to make it go away. This sicking up business is just too... undignified."

Harry's mouth almost dropped open. "You've never sicked up before?"

"Some pure-blooded families don't allow childhood illnesses to progress that far, Harry," Snape explained.

"Arghhhh!" Draco yelled as his features convulsed. A second later he was throwing his face back down to meet the bucket again.

"But Draco used to get sick when he was Apparated," Harry said in a low voice to his father. "Lucius told me."

"Bearing in mind that anything Lucius says may be a gross distortion of the truth--"

"Can you stop saying gross?" Draco moaned, the noise of it pitiful. "Please?"

Snape inclined his head, though Draco almost certainly couldn't see it. "I would surmise that any time Draco became nauseated, Lucius or Narcissa would give him a potion at once."

Harry nodded, understanding why Snape had spoken with Draco alone the night before. If you'd never ever sicked up, it would be a horribly frightening experience.

"I can't believe Muggles put up with this," Draco finally groaned, looking up again. He wiped at his mouth then looked with disdain at the sleeve of his pyjama.

"You're putting up with it," Harry reminded him, voice mild.

"Yeah, once. If I had to do this every time I got sick I think I'd rather die-- Arghhhh!"

And again, he began to make those awful noises as his empty stomach tried to empty itself still further.

Remembering what Aunt Petunia would do for Dudley when he used to sick up, Harry went into the bathroom to wet some flannels. Since he really didn't think Draco would want Harry wiping his brow, though, he handed them over with a slight smile. Draco stared at them for a moment like he wasn't quite sure what they were for, but then he sighed and began wiping at his face and neck. His skin looked as dry as paper, even when wet, which Harry took to mean that Draco was badly dehydrated. He wished he could offer his brother some water to drink but knew better than to even mention it.

"My head hurts," Draco whimpered, sitting back on his heels, the damp flannels resting on his knees.

Sensing they were there for the duration, Harry sat down on his bed and tried not to look as sympathetic as he felt. Draco wouldn't like to be pitied, he knew.

Or at least, not normally.

"Didn't you hear me?" said the boy in a plaintive voice as he rubbed both his temples. "My head hurts, Severus. I think it's going to explode! And every time I sick up it gets worse! I can't bear it any longer!"

"Hush, child," said Snape very softly, as though aware that too much noise would only make Draco's head ache worse. He summoned a chair and sat down next to Draco, reaching over to nudge the boy's head to rest against his knee. "I can't give you any potion; you know that."

Draco whimpered again, slumping against his father as though grateful for the support. "But the antidote," he whined. "I've been as brave as I can be, Severus. I need it."

Snape's hand stroked the top of Draco's matted hair. "Shhh, you foolish child. You know there isn't any antidote. You did your research well. You chose Venetimorica because there wasn't any way around it."

Draco shuddered. "I... yeah," he thickly groaned. "But I'd hoped... you know, you said there was one..." He looked up with bleary eyes. "Liar."

"You're almost through it," Snape assured him, his hand so soft and gentle on Draco's head that Harry realised with a start he was staring. "An hour more, perhaps."

Draco's groan said more clearly than words that an hour more of this was more than he could bear. He clung to Snape's leg, actually wrapping his arms around it as he knelt there, leaning against his father, but after a moment he suddenly yanked himself free and literally threw himself towards the charmed bucket.

A horrible rushing sound ensued as a torrent of something thick and foul rushed out of Draco's mouth and into the bucket, and for one instant, the rankest odour Harry had ever smelled choked the air.

Then the charmed bucket did its work and vanished its contents away.

Draco wiped his mouth on his sleeve again, leaving a thick brownish-green stain on the flannel. "Ugh! Ugh! Somebody kill me now!"

Snape conjured a glass of whitish fluid and merely told Draco to rinse his mouth and be sure not to swallow. "Bicarbonate of soda," he explained in answer to Harry's answering glance. "Non-magical."

Draco rinsed his mouth out five times in a row, then promptly threw up again and used the whitish liquid several more times, then sat back with a sigh. "I... oh, Merlin that gives a new meaning to the word nasty. I completely cannot understand why Muggles don't slit their own throats."

Harry might not have understood what Draco had just gone through, if not for Dobby's book which had explained in graphic detail. "Draco, when Muggles sick up they only empty out their stomachs, not their entire digestive tracts."

"Well, still," the other boy muttered, breathing in deeply several times. He looked down as it to take stock of himself, and pulled an awful face. "Ye gods, I'm filthy."

He wasn't, really; he was just sweaty and had the one disgusting stain on the cuff of his pyjama sleeve, but Harry could understand him wanting to clean up, certainly.

"Is it over?" Harry asked his father.

"Oh, it's over all right," said Draco, rising rather unsteadily to his feet. He began trying to unbutton his pyjama top, but his fingers weren't coordinated enough to do the job.

Snape solved that with a single incantation, and as Draco stood there shirtless, began casting a series of diagnostic charms.

Harry bit his lip when he saw the awful scar that was left from the amulet that had gone haywire. No wonder Draco resented the mark so much. His skin was puckered and marred all around the smaller maroon mark that was the same shape as the amulet. The whole area of damaged skin was perhaps the size of Harry's palm.

He didn't want to make Draco feel even worse about the scar, but some part of him just had to ask, "Um... have you tried Scaradicate yet?"

"Doesn't work," the other boy said, shaking his head as he trailed a hand lightly over the mark. "It's like Severus said. This is mainly magical, not physical. Like your own scar."

"I can't understand why the amulet would..." Harry sighed. "It was just supposed to heat up! I'm really sorry."

Draco began rubbing his hands back and forth over his upper arms, as though cold. "Well, I had just hit you. Maybe your amulet thought I deserved something in return."

"It should be safe to spell you with Hydratus now," Snape announced.

The minute the charm had been cast, Draco sighed in relief. "Ah, now that's much better. I'd completely forgotten what it was like to not have trolls stomping on my skull. And my bones don't ache now, either... Well, I think I'll have another shower. A nice long one."

"Are you certain you'll be all right on your own?"

Draco wrinkled his nose. "Well, I'm not a weakling, Severus. I think one supervised shower per day is more than enough. Don't you?"

"He'll be all right," Harry said dryly. "Back to his old self in no time."

For all that though, Snape insisted the bathroom door be left open again, just in case Draco needed something. Made sense, since the Slytherin boy wasn't very steady on his feet, yet. They actually heard him fall and start cursing at one point, though straight away his voice called out that he was all right and not to come bursting in.

Harry cleaned the room from top to bottom, glad that Parseltongue cleaning spells had never presented too much difficulty, then went out to see to dinner. He wasn't sure any of them wanted to eat, actually, but it wasn't lost on him that Draco hadn't had a bite of food in almost two days.

The charmed box, as if knowing something light was called for, gave him chicken soup with little crackers shaped like snitches.

Draco nibbled a few crackers and ate half a bowl of soup, not saying much at all until the end of the meal. "Well, that was positively sickening. Literally. Thank Merlin it's over."

"Thank Merlin some poor first-years didn't stuff themselves with fairy cakes," Harry corrected. "What about Larissa? How would you have felt if--"

"Who?"

Harry stared. "Larissa. First-year. She's about this tall--"

"Harry, what can you be thinking?" drawled Draco, his chin lifted. "I don't socialise with the lower forms."

"You were a prefect!"

"Ah, well that was given to me almost as a hereditary honour." Draco shrugged.

"It was given to you," Snape corrected in a hard voice, "in the hope that responsibility would help you become responsible."

"Well, it's a moot point now," Draco sighed, the sound so sad that Harry wondered if his brother was remembering how Pansy Parkinson had been his fellow prefect. It really hadn't been a good year for Slytherin, with one prefect murdered and the other one expelled. "But speaking of being responsible..."

Draco drew in a deep breath, then announced something Harry had never, ever thought to hear him say.

"I'd like to apologise again to that elf friend of Harry's. You were right, Severus. I wasn't sorry at all yesterday. But now... I think I see what you mean. Some, at least. Anyway, can Dobby hear you if you call him from here?"

"Oh, now you know his name?" asked Harry, one eyebrow raised.

"Yes," Draco said, grimacing a bit. "Severus was right about that too, I suppose. I was using his name like a weapon. It's an insult to not remember the name of a house-elf bonded to your family. Or once-bonded, in his case. But... Dobby deserves better from me than that. It's like you said that time about Professor Lupin. He's on the same side as I am, so I have to be able to work with him. And Dobby... he's on your side, too."

Draco cleared his throat. "Well, what are you waiting for, Severus--"

"You may speak with Dobby when we return to Hogwarts, Draco."

"I might lose this bizarre urge to humble myself," Draco dryly warned. "Like with the poison, best to get it over with, don't you think?"

"Apologising when one is wrong is not a mark of humility. Maturity, rather."

"And I've been so mature since I was expelled."

As Harry covered his mouth to keep from laughing out loud, Snape smiled. "A valid point. But I would still prefer to keep my hideaway as secret as possible. You will simply have to retain your bizarre urge until the holiday is over."

"All right. I... yes, I can do that."

"Good, because if your remorse only lasts a fleeting day or two, one might question how genuine it was, you understand."

Draco nodded slightly. "I think I'll just resume work on my lines, then."

Harry almost expected their father to say that Draco could forego the lines, now, but Snape must have thought the consequence could still serve some purpose.

"Do that," the Potions Master said, then added in a lower tone, "Draco... I enjoy having two sons I can take pride in."

Draco nodded again, his silver eyes damp as he got out parchment, quill, and ink and set to work.

-----------------------------------------------

Coming Soon in A Year Like None Other

Chapter Eighty-Four: Reconstruction

Comments very welcome,

Aspen

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Betaed by the Fabulous Mercredi.
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