Better Angels

Better Angels

Chapter Two

Inter-House Quidditch Squad

The next Wednesday, Draco turned out to the Quidditch pitch a quarter hour before the time he'd announced to the other students. When he wondered out loud if anyone was coming, Madame Hooch said, "Nonsense! At least a dozen students told me they planned to come, and they may have told others."

He found her briskness a bit reassuring. "A few talked to me, too," he admitted.

"What do you have planned for today?"

"Well, I thought we'd find out what positions everybody wants to play, and then do some flying and ball-handling drills to see where everybody's skills are. If there are enough decent players we could do a quaffles-and-bludgers scrimmage, if not, I'll wing it.

"That sounds fine. I'll keep to the sides and make sure every plays safely. I'll only intervene if you seem to be having trouble."

"Okay." He was a little nervous about that--he'd never led a group of people who were not already inclined to follow him. It was bound to be harder than bossing around Crabbe and Goyle.

The first ones to show up were Granger and Longbottom. He had expected Longbottom to come, as he'd said he would, to support Draco. Granger was a surprise.

There to check up on him, maybe?

She selected a school broom and explained, "Quidditch is so important to Ron and Harry, I thought I'd try to learn a little bit about the game."

"Oh...good..." he said vaguely. She was all right on a broom, he remembered from their flying lessons, although she was too cautious for serious Quidditch. As for Longbottom.... Well, he'd gotten a lot better since their first lesson. And he was braver than people thought.

"Did you have a position in mind?" he asked them

"Most girls play Chaser, don't they?" Granger said. "I thought I'd try that."

"Okay. Neville?"

"Keeper?" he suggested hesitantly. "I don't really know."

"Maybe we'll do some drills and see what you're--" least hopeless "--best at."

A clot of first and second years was moving down the pitch--apparently they'd decided on safety in numbers. Draco introduced them to the others, and learned that he had two aspiring Seekers, five potential Chasers, and four would-be Beaters. Some had played in informal neighborhood games, but three were muggle-born students who hadn't been on brooms before their first flying lesson in October.

Next to arrive was a tall, stocky girl Draco recognized from the Slytherin common room. Zenobia was her surname, and she was fourth or fifth year; he wasn't sure which.

"Flint says he won't have girl on his team," she declared. "I'm here because I want to get so good he has to let me play."

"Good. Beater?" She had a Beater's club swinging from one hand.

She nodded.

She was built for a Beater, and it would do Crabbe and Goyle right to be kicked off the team in favor of a girl. And she had a decent broom. "Played much?"

"With my brothers," she said.

"Good, we don't have any experienced Beaters."

A Hufflepuff/Ravenclaw couple, who were looking for something they could do together (outside of the Astronomy Tower, Draco added mentally), joined the group net. The girl had played Keeper for her elementary school, but the boy hadn't flown much except for class.

All told, he ended up with fifteen players, which was a decent number. If most of them kept coming, they'd be able to get up two sides for games, eventually.

"All right, everybody, gather 'round," he said, when he thought everybody had arrived. "For those who don't know, I'm Draco Malfoy, and I'm Not Evil."

Nobody laughed, except for Neville and Zenobia. Some of the first years looked distinctly nervous.

"Welcome to the first meeting of the Inter-House Quidditch Squad." He talked a little bit about the purpose of the club, as defined by Madame Hooch, and then said, "Everyone, collect a broom if you haven't one already. I'd like to see everyone fly around a little bit, so we can get an idea of everybody's skill levels. Let's have...er, five go at a time. Just fly up that way, weave around the poles, and come back."

The older students looked disdainful, but come of the younger ones looked nervous. When all had finished flying, Draco determined that he had about four decent fliers--himself, Zenobia, the Ravenclaw girl (whose name was Christina Grumbine), and Granger. Seven more were adequate. The other five looked like they couldn't even hover one-handed for the drills he had planned.

He made an executive decision. "Okay, you lot--" the poor fliers had bunched up together, unprompted, "--seem to need a bit of flying practice before you're ready to move on to ball handling. Could one of the more able players work with them?"

Nobody volunteered. He wavered between Granger and Longbottom. "Longbottom," he decided. "Would you mind taking that on? I'll send someone over to relieve you after a bit." Neville had had such a hard time learning, he'd probably remember what it was like to be a beginner. Granger would go quoting Zen and the Art of Broomstick Maintenance at them until they died of boredom.

Neville looked surprised. "Me?"

"If you would."

"Okay! Oi, you lot! Come this way, kids." He led them off to another part of the pitch.

"We'll start with some passing drills," he told the rest of the players, taking the Quaffle out of its crate and tucking it under his arm. "Fly up to playing height, and hover in a circle. I'll call someone's name, and pass them the Quaffle. When you get it, call someone else's name and pass. Everybody got it?"

They did.

The passing drill went, he thought, reasonably well. He had to dive down to catch the Quaffle at least two dozen times in the first twenty minutes--he made sort of a game of trying to get it before it hit the ground--but the squad improved a bit after that. He did have to intervene twice to stop some of the better players keeping the ball away from the poorer ones.

Later in the practice, he gave everyone bats and explained a Bludger drill he wanted them to do, and sent Granger over to spell Neville. She returned, saying "He wants to keep on with the younger kids."

"Really?"

"That's what he says."

Draco shrugged. "All right." Neville may have been wise, since the Bludger drill proved more dangerous than Draco anticipated. Many of the less experienced players couldn't stop themselves throwing their arms up and forgetting the Beater's bat existed when the Bludger came at them. There were two bloody noses and a very near fall before Draco called a stop to it.

Neville had snagged one of the Quaffles and was having the beginners' group pass it back and forth at a height of five feet. Draco got another one from the broom shed and had his players take turns making goals and defending the hoops.

It was getting dark by the time the practice finished. "Good show, everyone," he said when they landed, with a heartiness that sounded false even to him. "Everybody's made--" some "--a lot of progress," he said, more convincingly. "And we all had a lot of fun, right?" He was surprised to realize that he had.

"Yes," the team said, in a ragged chorus.

"All right then. Same time next week. Bring your friends."

As they walked up to the castle, the players chatted companionably. Draco was content to listen to them. He was tired from the practice--none of the drills had been challenging for him, but the effort of keeping watch over the group and making sure nobody got hurt (as well as rounding up stray balls), was.

"You were really good out there," Longbottom told him.

"Thanks." He shrugged. "I've been playing a long time."

"Not that. I mean, yeah, you're a good player, but you're pretty decent at coaching, too. Hermione thought she'd have to stop you being nasty to the kids who aren't very good."

"So that's why she came."

"Well, she does want to get some playing in, so she can understand when Ron and Harry go on about Quidditch."

"You were good, too. With the beginners."

Neville beamed. "I like kids. I might teach primary school when I'm older."

"You'd be good at that."

There was an awkward moment when the Squad arrived at the Great Hall. Everyone sort of looked around at each other and said, "See you around, I guess," to the people they had been talking to, and went off to their respective tables.

Draco took his usual place with the Gryffindors.

"Honestly," Granger was saying. "You'd think Dumbledore would do something."

"About what?" Weasley asked.

"That Flint, not letting girls on the Slytherin team. Zenobia's as good as Crabbe and Goyle."

"She's as good as they were when they started, anyway," Draco agreed. "But it's Flint's team. He gets to decide who plays."

"But he can't exclude her just because she's a girl!"

"Why not?" They excluded him just because he was a Malfoy. "I suppose she can't help it," he allowed.

Granger snorted.

"How was the practice?" Weasley wanted to know, once he'd slowed down stuffing his face.

"Not bad," Granger said. "It's rather fun, actually. I suppose it'll be even better when we can really play. And Malfoy's a decent coach, really."

"I'll believe that when I see it," Weasley muttered.

"You can't come. You're on a House team."

"He can watch if he wants to," Granger argued.

"I don't think the squad's up for spectators yet, do you? Maybe when we do a scrimmage people can invite their friends." Part of the fun of Quidditch was showing off for people, after all.

"Well--I guess that's fair," she allowed.

After dinner, he decided to stop by Snape's rooms. He did say he wanted to hear about Draco's activities...

Still, he looked a bit alarmed when he saw Draco waiting by his door. "Did something happen at practice?" he asked, unlocking the door.

"No, it was really good."

He wished Snape didn't look so surprised.

They went in, and Draco chattered at great length about the practice, while the Professor said things like "Hm," and "Oh," and "Did they?"

After a while he realized, "I'm boring you."

"Not at all," he said unconvincingly. "I'm glad you had fun."

#

Severus was glad for him.

Except that Draco had been driven into his company by isolation and danger, and it sounded like he was halfway to being genuinely liked by the students on his squad. Once that happened, how much longer would he have time for his irritable old Potions professor?

He ruled his emotions with an iron fist. It was good that Draco was making friends his own age. He wanted him to be happy.

"That's really good," he said again.

"Yeah, well." Draco shrugged. "Half of them don't know one end of a broom from the other."

"They'll learn, I suppose."

"Did you play Quidditch in school?"

"Me? No, of course not. I wasn't any good." He'd even convinced himself he hadn't wanted to play--but if he forced himself to look back on his first few years at school, he had. Painfully.

"Well, you'd have done fine on my team, then."

"Maybe." If he'd been brave enough to join a club for people who wanted to play Quidditch but were lousy at it. It was far easier to pretend he was above childish games.

"What did you do in school?" Draco wanted to know.

"Nothing. I was a little swot nobody liked."

"Really?"

"Yes." What was so hard to believe about that? He hadn't changed much.

"Like Granger?"

"No, not like that. She's what you would call a 'nice studious lass.' I was never a nice studious lad. I gave the impression I wasn't up to anything wholesome. And I wasn't, for that matter." He had spent his free time researching hexes, jinxes, and curses--and never quite managing to use them when he really needed to. "The teachers didn't like me any more than the students did."

"Not even Dumbledore?"

"Not really." Dumbledore, he thought, had barely known he existed.

"That must've been awful."

"It was," Severus admitted.

"Why did you come back? To teach, I mean."

He almost didn't answer. "Because where I went after I left school was even worse. And I didn't have a lot of other options."

"Oh, yeah," Draco said.

"It's not so bad," he said. "The job. There aren't many other jobs in Potions. Research is a Ministry job, so that's right out, and I wouldn't fancy working in an Apothecary shop. Perhaps if I owned it, but I don't have the gold to invest, so...this is the best choice, even leaving out the other considerations."

"Is it true you wanted to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts?"

"It was my best subject," he admitted. "But Potions is all right too." What bothered him was that Dumbledore didn't trust him with Defense Against the Dark Arts. "As a matter of fact, having a succession of incompetents teaching Potions--"

Draco yawned hugely. "Sorry. Tired. Practice, you know. Do go on."

"I don't think I'd like to give up Potions, if I had the chance. I've gotten possessive about it," he finished quickly.

"Oh, right." Draco stood up. "Lots of homework, better try to get some done before I fall asleep. I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

"Yes, of course." Then he couldn't stop himself. "We've got Longbottom's detention tomorrow." He ought to let him off it, stop forcing the boy to spend time with him if he didn't want to.

"Okay. Then I'd really better get some homework done. Goodnight!"

#

Draco turned up for his detention the next evening with Longbottom in tow.

"But it's completely unreasonable," Neville was saying as they went in. "Pansy pushed you, and you could have gotten really hurt."

"Yes, I know." He wanted to explain, but he had promised. "Pansy's father is a school governor," he said instead. "And--well, important, you know. I don't care--I've gotten away with loads of things I ought to have been punished for. It's just catching up with me now." Some of those things had involved throwing things in Neville's cauldron when he wasn't looking, but he decided not to mention that just now.

They put their things on one of the tables in the Potions room. Snape was nowhere to be seen.

"Probably in his office," Draco said. "I could get him."

"Let's just wait," Neville suggested.

He shrugged. 'Okay." Draco started poking around some of the shelves. Snape had all sorts of interesting things, and Draco was fairly sure nothing he left sitting out in a classroom would be especially dangerous. "Do you think this is a--" he began, picking up a long tusk like object.

"It's a narwhale horn, and I'll thank you to keep your paws off of it," Snape said from behind him.

"Oh. Professor. Didn't hear you come in."

"Obviously," he sneered. Then he deposited a sack he had been carrying tucked under his arm on one of the tables. "Longbottom. Over here."

Neville approached hesitantly.

"Open the sack," Snape instructed. "You'll recognize the...object...inside. Do what it tells you."

Draco had a horrible suspicion what was in the sack.

"Malfoy, collect what you need for the Ridigio Principia. You'll brew it in my office."

If Draco was right about what was in that sack, Snape wouldn't want to be in the same room with it. He started taking ingredients off of shelves and putting them on a tray.

Behind him, he heard flapping.

"Good morning!" an obscenely cheerful voice caroled.

Neville was staring at Percy the Penguin in abject horror.

"We're going to play a game," the toy informed him. "I make learning fun! What's the main ingredient in a forgetfulness potion?"

"Um..." Longbottom looked around desperately. "Bloatwort?"

"Correct!" Percy started to dance.

Longbottom had the look of a man who had seen the executioner's axe slip, but knew he couldn't expect his luck to last.

Draco took pity on him. "Professor, you did neutralize that thing, didn't you?"

Snape threw him an annoyed glance. "Surely you don't suspect I'd put a student in mortal peril," he drawled, managing to sound as if that was the very thing he'd like most in the world to do.

"Of course not." Draco smiled reassuringly at Neville.

"Which of the following," Percy asked, "Employs rattlesnake venom as a principle ingredient? Babbling beverage, Pepper-up Potion--"

Draco grabbed the rest of the things he needed and fled.

Once Snape had shut the office door behind them, Draco collapsed against it, laughing so hard his legs gave out. "That...was...so...mean!" he managed to get out.

"I'm glad you enjoyed it. I, for one, was looking forward to seeing him the first time he got a question wrong," he added, with a touch of asperity.

"Leaving him thinking he was going to die would have crossed a line," Draco argued. "It's funny enough without it."

"If you say so," Snape said doubtfully.

"I do."

Draco started preparing the ingredients for his potion, and Snape added, "He'll learn a lot from that thing. I've given it all the questions on my next exam. It'll keep asking them until he gets them all right, and any lingering doubts about the safety of the thing ought to make sure he remembers them."

Draco wasn't sure about that--Neville seemed to find danger more of a distraction than n aid to concentration. But he'd tell Neville that the penguin's questions were the exam ones next time he saw him--that way Neville would still get the benefit Snape wanted him to from the ordeal. "That's incredibly devious," he said admiringly. "Not even he's going to know you were rewarding him for sticking up for me."

"Well, yes." Snape looked embarrassed. "Thought I ought to get some use out of the thing."

He worked on his potion without much talking. Snape left to check on Longbottom a few times, and returned looking satisfied with himself.

"Say, you wouldn't like to tell me what's going to be on that exam, would you?" he asked on one of these occasions.

"No, I would not. You're more than capable of passing it without any extra help."

He hadn't really thought so. "Worth a shot," he said, dripping two drops of mercury into his cauldron. "I did some research on what went wrong with my first try at this potion," he said. "It was the glass bottle that really fouled things up, wasn't it?"

"Yes. The extra mercury could have been neutralized with some unicorn hair and dragon scales."

"That's what I thought." He stirred the potion four times counterclockwise, dripping in tincture of morning glory. "Haven't heard anything from Pansy lately. Have you?"

"Her father sent Dumbledore half a dozen owls, but he won't allow her back in my class. He's throwing out the usual innuendoes about me, trying to get me sacked, but Dumbledore won't let that happen. He has the final say about staff decisions."

"That's pretty rich, Pansy's father saying you're a Death Eater when they both are."

"Well, at least he can't say how he knows." Snape shrugged. "Without proof, it's not news to anyone."

"What about...the other side?"

"The Dark Lord couldn't give two knuts whether Miss Parkinson takes N.E.W.T. Potions or not," Snape said coolly. "He doesn't exactly take an interest in his young followers' career prospects."

"I guess not." Draco had a nagging sense there was something more to the situation, but he couldn't quite figure out what it was. He shrugged, and went back to his potion.

#

"I don't want him to be miserable," Snape said, trying to convince himself. "But if he doesn't need me anymore..."

"Every parent of a teenager goes through the same thing," Dumbledore pointed out. "You have to let them go, and hope they have the sense to come back."

"I'm not really his parent," Snape reminded him. "I'm his teacher. He'll leave school in a little over a year, and then I'll have no role in his life at all." It wasn't fair that he'd only gotten to know Draco again at the very end of his school career. Lucius ought to have gotten himself killed sooner.

"No official role," the Headmaster allowed. "But at seventeen, he'll still need an adult he can trust."

"I hope he knows that."

"He's genuinely fond of you," Albus reassured him.

He knew that, but he was still worried. He wasn't sure what returning to his life of isolation would do to him.

"You ought to follow his example," Dumbledore continued, "And make an effort to associate with your fellows."

"Faculty Quidditch team?" he asked, smirking at the mental image of some of the less athletic professors on broomsticks.

"You need not be quite so literal," Dumbledore chided him. "Spending a bit more time in the staffroom and a bit less hiding in your rooms might be a place to begin."

"I don't hide. I'm not afraid of them."

"You aren't?"

He hated it when Dumbledore did that. He was like fac me certiorum in robes and a pointy hat. "Well, I don't think they're going to hex me in the back or put poison in my tea," he hedged.

"Mm." Dumbledore topped up his teacup.

"I'd rather be alone in my rooms than equally alone in public," he snarled. "Happy?"

"Why do you think that your colleagues would be less than inviting to you?" Dumbledore evaded the question.

"Because they don't like me," Severus said weakly.

"Which you know, because they've respected your apparent wish to be left alone?"

"Which I know," he growled, "Because when I was at school--"

"You were a strange child who hexed anybody who tried to help you."

"I don't remember anyone trying." That was almost a lie. What he did remember was trying as hard as he could to convince himself he didn't need help.

"I'm not saying they tried very hard."

The next day, during his free period, Severus stomped into the staffroom carrying a stack of essays and his "World's Greatest Teacher" mug. He drew a cup of tea from the urn and selected a chair some distance from anyone else.

There was no need to overdo things.

He was in the habit of addressing students' essays out loud as he marked them. Painfully aware of his audience, he tried to limit himself to groans, the occasional "dear God," and unusually vituperative marginal comments. He wasn't very successful--several times he had to stop himself in the middle of saying things like "Not mugwort, you pathetic moron," and "Wherever did you get that idiotic notion?"

"Severus, are the dungeons on fire?" McGonagall glared at him from across the table, rather as if he'd just transfigured his beetle into a button with six legs.

"No," he said shortly. "I've as much right to be here as anybody else."

"Flooded, then?"

"Plague of locusts," he said distractedly.

"What?! Have you--"

"I'm under orders to be more sociable," he explained, scrawling a "P" at the top of the paper he was marking.

"I see." She sounded amused. "And this if your idea--yes, of course it is."

"I have no interest in being mocked," he snarled.

"I'm not--"

"Yes you are." This was stupid. He ought to just go back to his own rooms, where he could talk to himself in peace. His own tea was better than this urn stuff, too.

"Where did you get that?"

She was looking at his mug. He wrapped a hand around it, protectively. "I didn't steal it, if that's what you're asking."

"Severus! Are you trying to misinterpret everything I say?"

"Maybe," he admitted. That last one was a bit of a stretch. "It was a Christmas present."

"From a student?"

"Yes. You can probably guess which one."

"Malfoy?"

"It was supposed to be ironic."

"You spent your hols with him, didn't you?" McGonagall asked.

"Yes." What was she going to make of that?

"I suppose that was...nice."

"As a matter of fact it was."

"Severus, you haven't..."

She had to have some exceptionally unpleasant question in mind. "Haven't what? Taken him to any Death Eater orgies? Taught him any forbidden Dark curses?"

"Haven't got a bit of a...crush on him, I was going to say."

"Don't be absurd." He had expected someone would think of that sooner or later. He was a little surprised it hadn't been brought up in some gratuitously offensive manner--like in the middle of a staff meeting. "I do draw the line somewhere. I could be his father."

"I didn't think for a minute you'd act on it, if you did. I just wondered."

"Well, I don't." His juvenile admiration for Lucius did confuse his relationship with Draco a little bit--but the idea of a sexual relationship with the boy he'd thought of as a foster-son for fifteen years was ridiculous. And repugnant.

Still, he could hardly be surprised if it was the first place people's minds went.

"You're not really his godfather, are you?"

He ducked the question. "I looked after him some when he was a baby."

She smiled. "That I'd have liked to see."

"Why do people keep saying that? It's not as if preparing a baby bottle is beyond the ability of anyone with two functioning hands."

"It's not the ability that's hard to believe; it's the inclination. You've never even had a pet, have you?"

"A dog, actually," he said tartly. "When I was small."

"What happened to it?"

"Killed. In the raid on my family's house. She was old by then anyway." The Aurors had claimed to have thought she was a hell-hound.

Idiots.

"You could get another one," McGonagall suggested.

"They aren't allowed in the castle." That's why Persephone had been home at the time of the raid to begin with. "Students would torment it anyway, like they do that creature of Filch's."

"I suppose you have a point. But it might humanize you in the eyes of the students. Something cute and fluffy."

"I think not." He didn't need a dog chewing on his wand and shedding on his robes. "I have no interest in being humanized in the eyes of the students. I put substantial effort into being feared. If I had a dog, I'd have to teach potions calling for live kittens to make up the damage."

"Mm, perhaps it's a bad idea, then," McGonagall admitted. "I'll let you get back to your work."

"Thank you."