Never Let Them See You Bleed

Much later that night, after the Weasleys, Hermione, Sirius and Remus had left, and everyone had gone to their separate beds, only one person wasn't getting a restful night's sleep. Draco, unknown to himself was tossing and turning in his bed, trapped in a nightmare to rival some of Harry's worst.

It was a bright, sunny, cheerful day, the kind perfect for children to play in a park while their parents rested in the shade provided by a tree, the promise of long days and warm nights to come. Draco looked around, a bit bemused as children ran around, chasing each other, their playful shouts invoking smiles on everyone. He listened intently, trying to make out their words, and felt his lips twitch as he heard the singsong teasing.

Then, as swiftly as a summer storm, the children's playful shouts became screams of terror as several figures in dark robes and masks Apparated in. Mothers yelled desperately for their sons and daughters to come to them, while fathers banded together to try and fight off the coming attack. He heard his name being yelled by a woman, but as he spun around to face the direction of her voice, he could see no one.

Flashes of green light spilled from the wands of the Death Eaters, killing everyone it touched, until only two were left alive. Draco found himself rooted to the spot, as one Death Eater came forward, pulling back his hood. The white-blonde hair flashed in the sunlight, and for a brief second, Draco felt his back stiffening in fear. Then he pulled off his mask, and while he did share many similarities with Lucius, the Death Eater wasn't the bastard Draco had lived with. He found himself face-to-face with himself. An older, harder version of himself, but there was no denying that Draco was the Death Eater.

The woman his older self was facing had long, blonde hair, but it was the shade of blonde that indicated that it wasn't her natural color. She had a small boy clutched behind her, and his hair

was a natural blonde, just a shade or two darker than Draco's own. The older self wore the classic Malfoy sneer as he looked at the woman, who was apparently looking defiantly back, her chin up. His dream self felt frustrated that he couldn't see who the woman was, only to be horrified as his older self raised his wand and yelled Avada Kedavra twice in quick succession, effectively killing both the woman and the child. Then, as his older self shot the Dark Mark into the sky and Apparated away, Draco seemed to get his previous wish of moving closer. He tried desperately to back pedal, as he had no wish to view this scene any closer. He wanted to turn and run away, to wash the tainted images from his mind, but something refused to let him. He was pulled closer and closer, until he was a scant few feet away from the last two killed.

The woman, who had previously captured his attention, had her face blurred, obscuring her identity, but that didn't matter at all once he beheld the child she was trying to protect. The slightly upturned nose didn't belong, nor did the slightly darker skin tone, but the open, dead eyes were a dark gray. Draco had seen enough pictures of himself as a small child to recognize the major similarities between himself and the child. Then, as if the information had been shoved into his head, he knew that he was looking at his son. A son that, just a few minutes before, had been playing with other children, wonderfully, gloriously alive. Now he was dead, killed by a Death Eater. His stomach lurched sickenly as one fact congealed in his mind.

He had killed his own son.

Draco woke suddenly, gasping for air, safe in his borrowed bed at Haven. The nightmare was still fresh in his mind, as was the sickening, last thought. He had killed his son. He had sworn to himself when he was eight that he would never harm his child, if he ever had one. Swallowing heavily a few times, he forced his supper back into his stomach, wincing as bile burned at the back of his throat. A draft of air whispered across his skin, chilling him as it cooled the sweat on his body. He wanted to pull the covers over his head and just let go, but years and years of emotional control prevented any tears from leaking out of the corners of his eyes. Instead, he laid back down into his bed and stared at the plain, white ceiling until his eyes drifted shut once more. And this time, he did not dream at all, but it still didn't erase the horrifying images of his previous dream.

---

It was far too early in the morning to be getting up, Harry thought, sleepily. His eyes glazed over as he wondered what precisely had startled him out of sleep. He was just about to drift back off when he heard it again.

Tap, tap, tap.

Reaching for his glasses, he slid them on while yawning, and then opened his eyes towards the window, where the sound seemed to be coming from. A large, brown owl tapped on the window with its beak again, as if it were prodding Harry to get up to let it inside. He swung his legs out of the bed, shivering as they left the warm cocoon of the bed, then padded over to the window. Sliding it open, he wasn't surprised to see it fly in. But he was surprised to see it drop four envelopes onto his desk before taking a sip of water from Hedwig's water and fly back out the window. Picking up the envelopes, he noticed that they were all addressed in the green ink regularly used for Hogwarts letters. The thought of school cleared all remaining thoughts of sleep from his mind as he eagerly looked for the one addressed to Mr. H. Potter, Second to Last Bedroom on the Left, Haven, Unplottable. He snorted in amusement. So that was how Haven was hidden so well.

Sev must have done something quite important for Headmaster Dumbledore for his house to be made Unplottable, Harry thought. Aside from being a spy, that is. Looking curiously at the letters, he expected one to be addressed to Mr. D. Malfoy, Third Bedroom on the Right, Haven, Unplottable, and wasn't disappointed, but the letter to Sev gave him pause. Looking at the last letter, he nearly dropped it in his shock.

It was simply addressed Narcissa in a flowing, elegant script, unlike the functional simple script of school owls.

Tossing on a shirt, he wandered out into the hall and down to the third bedroom on the right. Knocking on the door, he leaned against the doorjamb as he waited for Malfoy to get his lazy arse out of bed and open the door. He didn't wince as the door flung open, revealing a very unhappy, bleary-eyed Draco, and for that fact alone he felt a bit better about the day.

"What?" he snapped.

"School o-o-o-o-wl," Harry replied through a yawn as he held the letter out. Draco grabbed it, turned on his heel and slammed the door behind him. "Note to self: Malfoy isn't a morning person," Harry muttered as he turned back to his room.

He nearly yelped in terror when he saw Sev standing behind him. Breathing in a few short gasps at first, he took longer breaths as his heart rate dropped back to normal. "That just scared a good year off my life," Harry muttered. This letter was taken more gently from his grasp than the last, and Sev looked as if he had been expecting the letter for the past week. "You knew about the owl?" he asked.

Sev spared Harry a small smile. "It's the first of August. All owls for returning students and staff are sent out today. Acceptance letters were owled two weeks ago." He seemed to notice the letter Harry still held. "Is that one yours?"

Harry flipped the letter over to show Sev the elegant green writing. Taking the letter, he went to the larger bedroom next to Draco's and knocked on the door. After a moment, Narcissa timidly opened the door, looking as if she were expecting it to all be a dream.

Severus held the letter out. "This is for you." She slipped the letter out of his grasp, a hint of her natural curiosity on her face. "How are you feeling?" he asked quietly.

She looked up at him for a second in shock before answering. "I'm fine. The crackers and tea helped as well."

He nodded. "Good. Breakfast will be ready shortly if you feel like eating anything."

A short, still-wary smile flitted across her lips as she turned and closed the door. Leaning against the door, she slid her finger under the flap, peeling it up and away. Her hands were shaking as she withdrew the letter, wondering who knew she was even at Haven in the first place. She opened the letter up to see who was writing her.

Narcissa -

I know that it must come as quite a shock to be receiving a letter so soon after your arrival at Haven, but I assure you that no one else knows where you are. I knew you were there yesterday when I arrived, but did not wish to provoke questions, questions that I did not know the answer to. I wish to meet with you, Narcissa, to discuss a very important matter, a matter that will soon become very urgent. Please send your reply with Balia.

-Albus Dumbledore

She stared at the elegant, flowing signature of the elderly Headmaster in shock. Most everyone considered him to know more than he was telling, but she had no idea that he could sense people inside a dwelling just by walking in. Then her mind raced as she realized that he wanted to meet with her. What could he possibly have to discuss with her? He said it was a very important matter, so it must have something to do with the Dark Lord's return.

Lucius had been almost deliriously happy when he had returned from the gathering, crowing about how the so-called great and powerful Dumbledore couldn't stop Voldemort's rebirth. Then, as he launched into an almost vivid and graphic recall of the earlier events, Narcissa felt a tiny piece of her heart breaking for the poor dead boy's mother. Lucius, of course, hadn't noticed her sudden lapse into silence, just like he hadn't noticed her getting sick nearly every morning for almost three weeks before they had to leave.

It hit her hard right then. She had left him. Sinking down against the door, a veritable plethora of thoughts crashed through her mind. She had a trust vault at Gringott's from her parents when she had married Lucius, and she knew that a large amount had been placed in the vault with Draco's birth, so money wasn't an issue. Getting to the money was, however. The Gringott's key was locked up in Malfoy Manor, and there was no telling what her parents' reactions would be when they learned of the recent events. Then there was the question of where she and Draco would live. They couldn't stay at Haven indefinitely, no matter how she felt there. She still had a bit of her pride, shredded as it was, and she wouldn't accept charity. She knew that neither she nor Draco had planned on any kind of extended stay away from Malfoy Manor, and they had no other clothing available to them. It didn't seem such a bother the day before, but Narcissa longed to be clean now - out of the filthy clothes she wore when Lucius tried to kill her, and take a long, hot shower to try and wash the tainted feeling she wore away. But there were no clothes for her at Haven.

She wanted to go back to Malfoy Manor, back to where she didn't have to worry about these problems, but she knew logically she couldn't. Lucius would kill her, if not for the sudden shock of the baby he didn't want, and then he would surely kill her for the fact that she ran from him. And if he ever found that Severus had helped her, then he would do his best to kill him as well. Her oldest friend didn't deserve to be targeted for death simply because he had helped her. Perhaps she should offer to leave to protect him, but she canceled that line of thought. She recalled how relieved he looked when she told him that she couldn't go back to Lucius. Chances were he would be very angry if she offered to leave, no matter the risk to himself. In that respect, he was much more a Gryffindor than a Slytherin. He had so few friends, he would go to the ends of the earth to protect the few that he did have, and she counted herself very lucky indeed that she was one of those few. It would be so hard to ask Severus for more help, though. She had already imposed so much on him, and he was so kind to keep giving what she needed.

Refolding the letter, she placed it back in the envelope, straightened her appearance as best she could and opened the door. Taking an exploratory sniff, she sighed silently with relief when her stomach didn't turn when she smelled breakfast. Walking silently through the hallway, she looked at the other three doors with no small amount of confusion. She knew Severus and Draco were here, but to whom did the third door belong? Thinking back, she caught a vague impression of messy black hair, a not very tall stature, but not anything else. Her curiosity piqued, she went down the stairs and turned left towards the kitchen - she remembered that much, at least. She stopped in pure disbelief when she saw the other young man seated at the table. It had been almost a year since she had last seen Harry Potter, but those incredible, damning green eyes hadn't changed - in color. She had to tell herself once again that it was not Lily staring back at her, but her son, and the hard-won maturity they now held wasn't all so shocking.

Not a sound was heard in the kitchen of Haven for a full minute, both Draco and Severus waiting with bated breath to see how this particular meeting would go. Draco and Harry had already called their semi-truce when the former had first arrived (although it didn't stop them from tossing sarcastic remarks back and forth across breakfast), but Narcissa hadn't really been in any shape to realize that Harry was also there. The party the day before had also kept them away from each other.

Harry stood uncertainly. "Um, hello."

"Brilliant, Potter. You're a verifiable master of articulation," Draco drawled.

Before Severus could intervene, Harry spared his nemesis from school a glance. "I didn't hear any better ideas from you, Malfoy," he drawled back in a pretty credible imitation.

Narcissa felt her lips twitch in amusement. "Hello," she said softly as she slid into a seat.

"Are you feeling better today?"

She froze, a quick stab of betrayal flashing through her mind. "I beg your pardon?"

"I just saw Sev pouring the anti-nausea, so I guessed that you were sick."

She blinked a couple of times. "Y-you don't know?"

Harry narrowed his eyes a bit, wondering what Sev and Malfoy knew and he didn't. She was looking at him quite strangely, as if she couldn't believe what he just said. "Mrs. Malfoy, I'm only guessing from what I've seen, and that guess is probably wrong. Whatever you three know, no one has shared that information with me."

She turned her wide, disbelieving gray eyes to Severus, and she felt a rush of gratitude so great, she decided that it was a good thing she was sitting down. They didn't tell anyone, her mind repeated.

"Mother?" She looked at Draco, and read the question on his face. Did she want him to know?

After a moment of careful consideration, weighing what she had heard about Harry Potter, she turned back to Severus. He looked back, seemingly unperturbed by her stare. "It is up to you, Narcissa, but Harry can be trusted with secrets."

She didn't miss the shy, grateful look Harry bestowed upon his guardian for the high praise. The look shook loose a couple of the notions she held about The Boy Who Lived. Looking back at Harry, she fought an inner mental war against herself. One side yelled that he would tell the secret to everyone he met, while the other, more trusting part of herself was yelling for her to trust in Severus's judgment. He hasn't been wrong yet, she told herself. If Severus can trust him, then perhaps I can, as well. Once she had made up her mind, her mind went completely blank as to tell the young man she was pregnant. She looked beseechingly at Draco.

"Mother's not sick. She's pregnant."

Harry's face went slack and his eyes looked like they would bulge out if they weren't behind his glasses for a moment before a bright smile lit up his face. "Wow. Congratulations."

"Thank you," Narcissa replied quietly, the hurt and fear masked carefully.

It took another moment for Harry to start thinking. Now his brow was furrowed tightly, the lightning-bolt shaped scar becoming a bit more visible below his dark hair. "Why would he want to hurt you?"

It seemed if everyone wanted to know the answer to that question, as both Draco and Severus also looked at her. Even Narcissa didn't know the answer. Shrugging, she replied with the only thing that stood out in her mind. "He kept saying that the plans would be ruined."

"What plans? I don't get it. Another baby is another potential follower for Voldemort." Off Narcissa's odd look, he explained his thought. "Mrs. Malfoy, it's not exactly a secret which side your husband is going to be fighting for."

"Yes, I know. I was more startled that you said Voldemort's name."

"Oh, that." Harry looked almost bashful, but there was a stubborn fire in his eyes. "I've met him four times in my life and I'm still living. I highly doubt that saying his name is going to kill me." He sighed. "If it wasn't so annoying, it would almost be amusing how everyone avoids saying his name."

After they had all eaten what they wished, and the plates were drying on a towel, Narcissa finally mustered the courage to ask Severus if she could speak with him. He merely nodded, and with a sharp glance at the two boys in an admonishment to behave, then led her outside. The bright sunshine, blue sky, and the fluffy white clouds held her spellbound for a moment as she stood in the shadow of the house. It was hard to remember, or believe, that nature still had such brightness to it, when it seemed as if her life were spent in a perpetual rain. Severus had already walked out of the shadow and was waiting patiently for her to join him in the sun. She took a step towards him. After a moment of lingering chilliness from the shadow, she could feel the sun start to warm her, from the top of her head down her back. They walked in silence for a while, along the edges of Haven's large back yard, just enjoying the company that they were in and the warm sunshine.

"You wanted to speak with me about something?"

If she felt brave enough, she would have scowled at him for ruining the lovely weather with the emotional rain cloud of her life. But she knew that the conversation had to happen, and she would prefer it to be out of Draco's hearing. So, she nodded. Then an unexpected bout of panic shook her. She had no idea how to phrase her request, so she decided on the simplest way. "I've got to go back to Malfoy Manor."

As soon as the words came out of her mouth, she knew that she had phrased it wrong, and Severus's resulting dark look further reinforced that knowledge. "Not go back there, but - oh, damn, this isn't coming out right."

Her more than evident confusion and hesitation soothed his ego enough to try and listen to what she was trying to say - and stumbling over her words in the process. "Why do you need to go back?" he asked. He nearly winced. He thought he sounded like a petulant child whose favorite toy had been taken away by his parents.

"I don't want to go back to stay, just for a while to get things."

He nearly hit himself over the head. Of course she wouldn't want to wear the same robes she had worn for the past two days, he berated himself. Not to mention that Draco needs to have his school supplies before the end of the month. That brought up another line of thought that nearly caused him to wince. No one had ever mentioned if Narcissa had her own money, or if Lucius controlled everything. Her parents were very wealthy, but having met them, he wouldn't put it past them to simply give Lucius the money, not caring if it actually reached Narcissa or not.

"School owls were sent out this morning, you know."

Narcissa picked up on the hint he was offering to her. "Yes, but that is also one of the reasons I need to get back to the Manor. If my parents hear of how I ran away..."

"Are they in England at the moment?"

Narcissa thought of her usual disastrous monthly conversations with her mother. Her parents liked to travel widely, to look down upon the native populations of the places they visited, and be treated as royalty simply because they had the Galleons to afford it. They tried to be back in England for a while over the summer so that they could 'visit' with their only grandson, but Narcissa remembered that their visit to Greece would keep them out of England until September, when they would go to Brazil for the winter months.

"No," she said on a rush of relief that stopped suddenly. "But they can always be reached somehow." She looked up at her dear friend sorrowfully. "I'm terribly sorry to keep burdening you with these minor problems -"

Severus suddenly stopped walking and turned to pin her with his hypnotic dark stare. "'Cia, this is part of the help I offered you. I'm willing to help you with all of your 'minor problems.'" The inflection in his voice indicated that he didn't consider getting her things anything resembling 'minor.'

She offered him a shaky smile, and he had to restrain himself sharply from tracing a finger across the smooth skin of her cheek, as he had done so many times in the past. Letting his lips curve slightly upwards in return, his mind started offering plans to get them both into Malfoy Manor (he would never consider letting her go by herself) and back out completely unscathed. His eyes narrowed as he considered a plan that would satisfy his ego for revenge, as well as achieve the objective. "Let me contact a few people before we plan anything."

He may be filled with pure Gryffindor courage when it comes to his friends, but when it comes to planning, there is no doubt that he's a Slytherin, she thought, a trace of amusement present.

It wasn't far into the afternoon when Arthur Weasley's head suddenly popped out of the fire, startling both Harry and Draco - Harry finishing his Potions essay, Draco making notes - and he didn't look happy.

"Where's Snape?"

A swish of robes heralded Sev's arrival. "Right here. Back to work, both of you," he added, looking at Harry and Draco. They had both retreated somewhat into their differing mindsets - Harry shrinking against the couch, and Draco sitting up straighter. Looking reassuringly at them both, he looked back at the fire.

"You wished to speak with me?"

"If this is your idea of a joke, I'm not laughing."

"If this is about what I sent you this morning, no, that is not a joke."

Arthur looked at him disbelievingly. "If I didn't know you better, Snape, I'd say that you're trying to get us killed."

"From my previous visits there, I noticed several surveillance charms in place. He'll know that you're coming, and he'll run."

"What makes you so sure of that?"

"Because he doesn't have his wife or son to hide behind. I know that you've been aching to get Lucius for anything ever since..."

Arthur coughed. "I'll give it some consideration," he said before he fire returned to normal.

Severus turned around to find two very curious boys staring at him. Raising an eyebrow, he looked pointedly at the parchments in front of them. Harry touched his quill to the parchment once, shortly before setting the quill down.

"Done," Harry announced with a half-smirk on his lips.

He's getting better at coming back out of his shell, Severus thought to himself. Draco held up a finger and jotted down two sentences, then tossed his quill down as well.

"That's as far as I can go without the rest of my essay."

Narcissa tentatively entered from the kitchen, where she and Severus had been preparing food for dinner that night. It was Harry's turn to cook; therefore, it fell to Severus and Narcissa to prepare the food, while Draco had been assigned clean-up duty. She was looking at him, too, wondering what the commotion was about.

He stared back at them, balefully. "None of you are going to leave me alone until you find out what that was all about, are you?"

"I've got a pretty good idea, but conformation would be nice," Harry said, knowing that he wouldn't have asked that unless he had already planned on filling them in. "Besides, you've probably already planned on telling us."

When did Harry start reading me so well? he thought.

"If," Severus stressed the word, making it clear that this wasn't definite, "this does work out, Aurors will go to Malfoy Manor and secure it before Narcissa and I travel there to gather all that is required."

"I'm going," both Harry and Draco said in unison before turning to glare at each other.

"Nothing is definite. But you had both better come up with good reasons for going at all."

******

I know that this was fairly short, but Sev insisted on having the last word. As always, many, many thanks to the kind souls who reviewed:

(again, in alphabetical order) Amara Potter, Ariana, attitude13, Bandy, Carla, Cathy, catz415, C-630, Death-Deom2K, dmckinni, Jade, Goddessmnb1, harriethorobin, HERMIONE, HosistaA, I_love_Elijah, jords, Kitycat87, lilahp, little*, Malia, Mariwhethr, Nexus, padfoot1979, Libbie, Rachel, Rhi, Sami Malfoy, Sabs, Will, wise1, and last, but never least, the incredible bouncing Zorb.