Better Angels

Better Angels

Chapter Four

An Affair of Honour

Draco, taking his seat at the Gryffindor table, grinned up at Snape, who was already at the high table.

Snape scowled at him.

Right. Cover. He smirked back at him, and applied himself to assembling the perfect piece of marmalade toast.

"Professor Snape's back," Weasley observed.

"Uh-huh."

"I wonder where he was?"

Draco looked around. Only Potter and Weasley were nearby. "Probably about where you'd expect," he said.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Potter wanted to know.

"Doing something for Dumbledore, of course. What did you think?"

Weasley snorted.

Eating his toast, Draco studied the Professor out of the corner of his eye. He remembered Snape coming to his rooms last night--he'd actually woken up while the Professor was in the middle of tucking him in, but , knowing he'd stop if he thought Draco was awake, had lain doggo and let him get on with it. He hadn't seemed badly hurt--and he'd said he was all right--but he didn't look like he'd had a very easy night.

Now he was speaking to Flitwick--unusually vituperatively, from the look of things--and regarding the milk pitcher as if he was unsure whether to throw it or hex it.

Okay, so that wasn't exactly unusual.

"--next practice." Granger what looking at him expectantly.

"What?" he asked unintelligently.

"I said, I'd like to have a go at Seeking next time," Granger said.

"Oh. Okay, if you want. But everybody wants to Seek-it's the position with all the glamour. We need people for the other spots, too." He plunked some sugar in his tea. "You might try Keeping, if you fancy a change."

"But we have Grumbine. She's very good."

"True. But we do need two. And we have me for Seeker."

"I had a bet going with Hermione that you'd put all the decent players on your side for your match," Potter said.

"Had to make it some kind of a horse race, didn't I? A one-sided game's no fun."

"It's not a bit like you to think that."

"You'll find yourself a lot less confused if you disabuse yourself of the notion that you've any idea what's like me and what isn't," he said flatly. "But if you insist, I'll clarify: setting up my own people to take a humiliating and public fall in a transparent attempt to make myself look good belongs in the 'not like me' category."

Granger looked anxiously back and forth between them. "He's actually a very good coach, Harry."

"How'd he get that way?" Potter demanded.

"Simple. I ask myself 'What would Father do?' And then I do the opposite. Never let me wrong yet." The quip wasn't far from the truth--Father had taught him to play Quidditch, and his teaching methods had included allowing Draco to be knocked off his broom by Bludgers until he got out of the habit of attempting to ward them off with his hands, and viciously berating him for every missed goal. Those tactics had only made him nervous, so he didn't use them.

"Huh."

"I've been raised for a position of leadership since I was in leading-strings," Draco amplified. "I've probably given the matter more thought than you have."

"Leadership of Dark minions,. Not a Quidditch team."

"It's not really so different. Either way, it's a matter of finding out what people want to accomplish, and then telling them how they can do it. Whether they want to win at Quidditch or kill M--persons of muggle ancestry," he said, tipping his head at Granger. "The team wants to have a clean, fun game. Of course, it we were playing against a different team, instead of against ourselves, I'd be the same ruthless git you've come to expect."

"I just bet," he said, and Draco had the definite impression he was imagining facing Draco, not across a Quidditch pitch, but on a different field of battle entirely.

#

"Hey, Malfoy, do you know what your pal's been up to?" A boy called Smeek--a Ravenclaw--taunted him across the worktable in Herbology.

"Who?" he asked blankly.

""See for yourself." He shoved a press clipping through the Creeping Clematis at him.

The plant wound its tendrils around Smeek's arm in the time it took before Draco plucked the page out of his hand--his friends had to pry him free.

The clipping was from the gossip pages, and was accompanied by a photo of a large, vulgar sort of house, with a small figure by the front doors waving its fist at the photographer. The story read "Several prominent figures were seen leaving Ragier Manor, rumored to be a Death Eater Hideout, after a weekend house-party. They include--" Several Ministry officials, a Wizengamot judge, and the CEO of Nimbus Incorporated were among the names he recognized "--and --parents beware!--a certain Hogwarts professor who was not cleared of charges to this reporter's satisfaction after You-Know-Who's first rise and fall. Several muggle disappearances in the area coincided with the--ahem--house-party."

"Bad news--your pal's a Death Eater."

"By 'my pal' you mean Professor Snape?" he asked dangerously.

"Do you have any others?"

"Then refer to him as such." He crumpled up the articled and lobbed it over the Creeping Clematis--which was ambitiously attempting to throw a tendril over the greenhouse's roof-beams. "He's still your elder, and very much your better."

"You say you're not evil anymore, but if you're not, you must be stupid. He was at a Death Eater meeting. The man's no good."

Draco wanted badly to explain, or at least retort. But he couldn't think of anything that wouldn't break his promise to the Professor. Instead, he swiped savagely at the Creeping Clematis with his shears, taking what satisfaction he could in foiling its desire to climb to the top of the greenhouse.

#

But Smeek kept up his taunts all through the lesson, and, when Draco stopped answering, took the addressing his mates loudly about Draco's moral and intellectual failings. Once he'd exhausted the subject of Snape's weekend trip, he moved on to Draco's Quidditch squad.

"--don't know who he thinks he's fooling. They're the worst bunch of losers ever to put a leg over a broom. Did you see that fat little--"

That was it. All he needed. It had nothing to do with Snape; no one could draw any inferences. "You want to say that to my face?" he demanded, trying and failing to keep his unholy glee off his face.

"What?"

"I said, do you want to step behind the greenhouse after class and insult my people to my face?"

"Yeah, right. You're too chicken to fight without Crabbe and Goyle backing you up. Maybe you've forgotten they're not interested?"

"I haven't forgotten anything. Are you chicken?"

"No. Behind the greenhouse, you said?"

"Yes."

Smeek nodded crisply.

#

"HAVE YOU COMPLETELY LOST YOUR MIND?" Snape demanded.

Dumbledore was sitting behind his desk, allowing Snape to pace around the room like a lunatic.

"BRAWLING. Like a STREET URCHIN. Have you no--"

"Severus, let's see what the boy has to say for himself," Dumbledore said mildly.

"Uh--he started it," Draco said. "And I finished it" I had it all planned out. I waited to call him out until he stopped insulting you and started in on the team, and I took it where we wouldn't get caught, and--"

"What?" Snape had stopped pacing, and was now still and quiet, the way he got when somebody was really in trouble. "You promised me--"

"I didn't. I just told you. He was going on about how you spent the weekend killing people, and I sat there and took it, because I promised. But then when he started talking about the Quidditch squad, I saw a chance to make my point."

"What point was it you had to make with your fists?" Snape was getting wound up again; the serious danger seemed to have passed.

"That he can't just go around insulting my people and expect me to sit there and eat it! That point!"

"You shouldn't--that was very stupid. Getting into a fight, defending my honor, which doesn't need to be defended--"

"Like hell it doesn't."

"Not in any way that you acting like a thug could possibly help! What did you hope to accomplish? Did you think if you pounded Smeek into the ground he'd admit I wasn't evil?"

"No. I just--well, it was fun, wasn't it? I haven't been in a fight in months." That didn't sound anywhere near as noble as he'd wanted it to.

"Did you say anything that even sounds like one of the Unforgivable curses?" Snape demanded.

"No--we didn't even have wands out. I'd expected a proper duel, but since I called him out he did have choice of weapons. When he punched me in the stomach and kicked my legs out from under me, I decided he'd selected fists and feet."

"Well, that's something," Snape murmured. "Quite aside from the fact that people can't know you have any idea what I do for the Order, you have to understand that there are people who would jump at any excuse to say you're heading down your father's path."

"It was an affair of honor," he said stubbornly. "I thought he'd handle it like a gentleman, I had no idea he'd run straight to the Hospital Wing screaming like a little girl."

"It was not an affair of honor. It was a brawl."

"Draco barely stopped himself saying, "Was too," and instead insisted, "I had to do it."

"No, you didn't," Snape said forcefully. "You are not to defend me. In any way. Even if you think you can make it look like something else. I won't have it."

Draco shook his head. "Can't promise that." He was puzzled. The Professor ought to understand there were things a man did, and defending your own from slander was one of them. "I didn't blow your cover; I was really careful not to. What's the problem?"

"Severus." Dumbledore looked at him over his glasses. "I do think that Mr. Malfoy has managed adequately to contain any potential security risk. I've spoken with a number of witnesses. Most have concluded that Draco has a bit of a...complex, was the word Miss Dickerson used...about his Quidditch squad. The remaining few have come to the--unfortunate, no doubt--conclusion that he's carrying a torch for Miss Granger."

"Damn!" He hadn't thought of that interpretation.

"Yes, so you're well out of it, Severus. Also, based on the reports of impartial witnesses, we do know that Mr. Smeek threw the first punch. I do believe we're safe handling the matter as an ordinary schoolboy brawl."

"See?"

Snape nodded, looking thoughtful. "Very well."

"So," Dumbledore continued, "There will be points from Ravenclaw, and Messrs Malfoy and Smeek will both serve detention."

Draco looked at Snape. That wouldn't be so bad--he did 'detention' with Snape almost every week.

"Professor McGonagall will supervise yours," he concluded.

"What? You mean a real--"

"Yes."

"But--" he looked over at Snape again.

"If you're convinced that as a gentleman you had no choice but to meet Mr. Smeek on the field of honor, you should be willing to accept the consequences," Snape said firmly.

He had a point. "And if it happens again?"

"No Dark curses, keep my name out of it, and, you do understand that fighting is against school rules."

"Okay." He nodded. One real detention wasn't so bad. "We're all right, then?" he pressed. There had been a few moments when he'd thought the Professor was really angry with him, and he couldn't live with that.

"Yes. I think so. I'm not sure if you were as discrete as you think you were, or if you simply got lucky. But your intentions were good." He sat down in the chair he'd been pacing around for the entire conversation. "You do know..."

"What?"

"That he was right. About what I spent my weekend doing."

Draco wondered what he meant, exactly--that he'd spent it doing Death Eater work, or that he'd actually killed people.

He didn't ask. "Yes. There's something in the Prophet--"

"I saw it," he interrupted.

"Yeah. Well. It was more the way he said it." Like the Professor was something unspeakably vile.

"I think you can take it as a given that whatever he said, I've worse coming to me."

Maybe, but he had better coming to him, too. "I still trust you."

"I know." He thumped Draco's shoulder and said briskly. "I've a class, and so do you. If we're finished here, Headmaster--"

"Yes, Severus, do go. But I'd like to have another word with Draco."

Draco was alarmed. "What--"

"I'll see you later." Snape left.

Dumbledore came around the desk. "Come with me."

Puzzled, Draco followed the headmaster to the sitting room where he and Dumbledore and Snape usually had their talks.

"As your Headmaster," he said, "I am appalled that you would even think of fighting on school grounds."

But... Draco looked up at him.

"But as Severus's friend, if I could knock the man who wrote that article into the mud behind the Herbology sheds...I might be tempted. He thinks his honour doesn't need defending. It does." He peered at Draco over his glasses. "Not that Mr. Smeek is in any way responsible, of course."

No, Dumbledore was.

#

"Malfoy." Smeek stopped him on his way to the breakfast table the next day.

He tensed, and carefully stopped himself from looking up at Snape. "What?"

"I--apologize. For what I said. And for. Fighting dirty." He scuttled away.

Draco did spare a glance at the high table then. Snape's face was impassive, but Professor Flitwick was nodding approval.

He took his place with the Gryffindors. "What was that about?" he wondered.

Weasley was chortling. "Apparently--Flitwick got the idea--he was a dueling champion, you know--he got the idea that the fight had something to do with bandying a woman's name--so he made him apologize."

"Really?" That was amusing--horrified as he was that he and Weasley both found the same thing funny. "Next thing, you'll have to call him out."

"Why?"

"Because the only woman's name I've heard in connection with any version of the fight is hers." He tipped his head at Granger.

Draco sighed theatrically. "It might be nice not being a gentleman. She's your girlfriend, isn't she?"

"Well--" Weasley blushed crimson. "Er, yeah."

"I can't deny it--that would be badinage. So she's got to, and if things get too hot, it's your duty to step in and defend her honour." He shook his head. "Father'd roll over in his grave, if he knew I was explaining the code of a gentleman to you."

"And that's a bad thing?"

"Er, no." He busied himself with the marmalade pot. "Honestly, though, it's a ridiculous rumour." Reminded of his duty as a gentleman, he added quickly, "Nothing against you, Granger. But the idea that I'd take Weasley's sloppy seconds--" He shook his head.

"I'd not have you on a silver platter, either," she retorted, with some asperity.

"I should hope not." Silver was not a suitable surface for--he ended that train of thought abruptly. "I was defending the honour of the squad, and that's that. I did think of some retorts for you, though."

"Oh?" Granger did not sound particularly interested.

"If someone asks if I've taken you to any Death Eater orgies, say, 'He wanted to, but your mum was busy that night.' Or sister, if he's got a sister."

"I'm not saying that!"

He shrugged. "Suit yourself. It's yours if you want it. But don't use that silver platter thing--it calls up an unfortunate mental image."

"I didn't--oh!" She blushed.

"See? Your mind's not devious enough."

#

To add insult to injury--or perhaps the other way around--McGonagall scheduled his detention for Wednesday, his regular Quidditch night.

"I hope it was worth it, Mr. Malfoy," she told him tartly.

He sighed. "It was. Except I think the Granger debacle is punishment enough." The rumour hadn't quite died down, even though everyone Weasley and Granger confronted claimed not to believe it. "What Have I got to do?"

"Lines. 'I must not start fights.' Two hundred times."

That wasn't much of a detention--he could finish that in an hour and a half. "But I didn't--"

"You heard me."

Ohhh. "Dumbledore got to you."

"The Headmaster told me to assign you a suitable punishment," she said tartly. "And left the details to my discretion."

Very interesting. Frowning, he set to work.