Worser Angels

Chapter 5

Visiting Day

Draco seemed noticeably more cheerful. Severus almost hated to pull him aside after Potions and tell him the news.

"What is it, Professor?" He looked anxious. Snape had insulted him all lesson in order to suggest a convincing reason why he was keeping Draco after class.

"Your mother has asked for you to go and see her on Saturday. Dumbledore has given his approval."

He lowered his eyes. "Do I have to?"

"You probably should. She's being moved to Azkaban next week. She won't be herself much longer." She hadn't been herself since before Draco was born. Was there anything the Dementors could do to her that Voldemort hadn't? "But you don't have to."

Draco put his chin up. "All right, I'll go. Can you..."

"I'll be taking you there."

The impending visit brought Draco's brief improved to an abrupt end. He sleepwalked through the next few days and turned up in the entrance hall Saturday morning looking like he hadn't slept.

"How are we getting there? Brooms?"

"Floo powder." Maybe he wanted to fly. He hadn't been on his broom since It happened.

"Good. I feel sort of sick."

Snape offered him the tin of Floo powder. "Say "Department of Magical Law Enforcement Holding, gate nine."

Draco stepped into the flames.

When Snape stepped out of the grate, Draco was standing in the middle of the lobby, his arms wrapped around himself.

Snape put his arm around his shoulders. "Over this way. Malfoy," He told the hag-faced matron. "Narcissa."

She selected a key from a huge ring. "No wands in the visiting room."

Snape held out his hand for Draco's wand. Draco hesitated before giving it to him. "We'll take a receipt for those," he said, giving both wands to the matron.

Grumbling, she wrote it out. "Two wands...ash and birch...what's this one, eleven inches?"

"Ten and a half. Dragon heartstrings."

"There you go, Professor." She sneered at Draco. "Is this the son?"

"Obviously." He had his father's colouring, but his bone structure was all Narcissa's.

They followed the hag-faced witch down a narrow stone hallway, lit by the sickly green glow of bale-torches set about twice as far apart as they ought to have been. Severus kept ducking his head, even though there were several inches of clearance between the ceiling and his head.

He had been on the men's side, the last time he was here, but otherwise nothing had changed.

"Twenty minutes," the matron told them.

Narcissa was wearing shapeless gray robes and sitting on a rough wooden bench, her face frozen in an expression of distaste.

"Mum." Draco swallowed hard. "Mother."

"Draco." She stood up and took his hands. "You must tell our Lord that I only gave evidence to the Ministry so that I could live to serve him." Her face became animated with her fervor.

"Uh..." Draco took a step back, closer to Snape.

"Severus." She noticed him. "You'll see to it that's he's presented to the Dark Lord. Messages sent to the Manor should find him."

Absolutely not. "I'll see what I can do."

"He'll forgive us," she said, without much confidence. "Once we explain."

Yes, because Lord Voldemort was such a forgiving wizard. Practically known for it.

"And Lucius died in his service. That should could for something."

Lucius had died trying to flee Azkaban, instead of waiting for rescue like a good little Death Eater. If he had--somehow--succeeded in escaping, he'd have been on the run from Voldemort as well as from the law. The only reason Severus could think of for his flight was that he'd been tipped off that he was going to be held responsible for the debacle at the Ministry. Voldemort forgave incompetents almost as readily as he did traitors.

Draco opened his mouth and closed it again.

"You wouldn't believe the way I've been treated here," Narcissa continued. "The staff here have no respect at all. There isn't a shred of privacy, and I've been called the most foul names." She continued prattling on about herself, the trials she had endured, and her ambitions for getting back into Voldemort's good graces, with occasional digressions into the bloody revenges she had in mind for her jailors once Voldemort had taken control of the Ministry. Draco didn't say a word, and Severus didn't think she noticed. She clearly didn't notice--or care, if she did--that he didn't look at all well.

After twenty minutes that seemed more like two years, the matron came back. "Time's up," she announced, sounding happy about it.

"Goodbye, mum," Draco said, standing up.

"Are you leaving already?"

"Yes."

"Well...come back soon. And tell me what the Dark Lord says."

"...."

"Let's be on our way then." Snape ushered him out. "Do you want to go straight back to Hogwarts?" he asked after they had collected their wands.

"What's the alternative?"

"We could walk around the town. Have some lunch." He didn't think Draco was ready to go back to the castle yet.

"There's a town?"

"Leeds."

"Okay."

Once they were outside of the gates, the Holding Facility looked like an abandoned factory. Possibly it really was one.

"You're not going to..." Draco began.

"What? Take you to see Lord Voldemort? Of course not."

"Oh. Good."

"I thought she wanted to see you," Snape explained. "If I had known....:

"Yeah. Maybe I should visit her again when she's not herself anymore."

Might not be a bad idea. "You've never seen a muggle town before, have you? It's rather interesting, but we're not exactly dressed for it." He sketched a pattern in the air with his wand. "Vestementia." His robes turned into a tweed jacket and trousers, and Draco's into jeans and a black pullover. "That's better." They strolled through town, Severus pointing out the sights of interest. "That's a post office...they put little bits of paper on their letters, and the government pays people to deliver them."

"Doesn't sound very efficient."

"It isn't, particularly. But they haven't got any owls."

"Hm." He pointed out a muggle school, a video arcade, and an electrical appliances shop, and attempted to explain how an automobile worked. Draco responded gamely to all of these conversational gambits, but Severus could tell his heart wasn't in it.

"Here," he said, recognizing a pub up ahead. "We ought to be able to get a sandwich or something here. Landlord's one of our sort."

"Which sort?" Draco asked shrewdly.

"Point. He's a wizard. Politically neutral as far as I know." Severus snagged a table in a corner. A barmaid in jeans and a tight jersey came and slapped coasters on the table. "Whiskey-soda," Severus ordered. "Top shelf. And he'll have a Coke. What sandwiches are on?"

"Cheese and pickle, cheese and ham, cheese and mustard, beef and mustard," the woman recited.

He raised in eyebrow to Draco, who shrugged. "Two beef and two ham and cheese," Severus decided. "And crisps."

"She's not one of ours," Draco said as she left. "Is she?"

"No. So be discrete."

The barmaid came back with their drinks. Draco sipped at his and made a face. "What is this?"

"Something muggle children drink. They don't have butterbeer here, so it's that or fizzy lemonade."

"This is fine. It's not bad, really, just strange."

"Mm. Yes."

Draco looked around at the pub's decorations: Rugby jerseys, pennants, team photographs. "Why'd he want to live with muggles, anyway?"

"Don't know, really. He likes that sport they play instead of Quidditch. Not football, the dangerous one." Severus paid even less attention to muggle sport than he did to Quidditch. "Haven't you ever thought about chucking the wizarding world and going off where nobody knows who you are?"

"No," Draco said slowly. "You have?"

"Eh. All the time. I lived in muggle London for a few years. Never really cut off contact with our sort, though." He shrugged. "A lot of wizards--especially muggle-born and mixed ones--live with one leg in the magical world and one leg in the muggle." He envied them, having that choice. He envied a lot of things.

"Can't imagine it," Draco said politely, pulling apart a sandwich. "Is muggle ham the same as ours?"

"Yes. Why?"

"I heard once that they ate wizard children."

Who told him-- "Lucius." It was obvious.

Draco nodded. "I didn't really believe it," he claimed.

"They sometimes say that wicked witches eat muggle babies," Snape observed. Turnabout fair play?

"Huh." Draco ate half a sandwich and poked listlessly at a bag of crisps.

"There's good muggles and bad, just like our kind. They even had their own You-Know-Who." He wasn't afraid to speak the name, but a crowded pub wasn't really the place for it.

"Really?"

"Killed eleven million muggles, and conquered over half of Europe. Hitler, his name was. German."

"Eleven million?" Severus understood his surprise. That was more wizards than had lived in England in known history. Even in muggle terms it was a large number.

"He didn't have to keep his existence a secret from the rest of the world. That helped."

"Why did he kill them?"

"That's the question. Muggle historians and philosophers have been debating that ever since it happened." Draco looked a little surprised. Severus understood. To someone raised in a pureblood family as bigoted as the Malfoys, "Muggle philosophers" sounded a bit like "cow mathematicians" or some other absurdity. "But the short answer is that he thought his own kind of people were better than all of the others, and deserved to rule over them. He claimed that the inferior races had to be cleared out to make liebenstraum--living space--for his own sort." He took a sip of his drink. "The reason I'm telling you this is a lot of the good side--Dumbledore, Weasley, that lot--would have you believe muggles are all sweetness and light, wouldn't hurt a fly. If you swallow that, finding out otherwise in the wrong context can be very...confusing. Most muggles are all right. Or just want to live their lives, anyway. But some of them are evil. You know about witch persecution in the middle ages, of course."

"Yes. From history of magic. But they never managed to kill any real witches and wizards, did they?"

"None that have been confirmed, anyway. But this Hitler did. He got a few just by accident. But one of his henchmen captured some wizards. Tortured them, trying to find out what makes us tick. Hoped he could find a way for some of his own people to use magic. It was...rather horrible. That's one of the reasons why anti-muggle sentiment is stronger on the continent--Hitler never got a toehold in Britain, although he tried. And his legacy is one way Voldemort gained supporters, to begin with. He said we ought to keep a closer eye on the muggle-born, to make sure they didn't take what we taught them back to their own kind and use it against us. He suggested that if muggles knew we existed, they'd round us up and slaughter us. He rose to power only a short time after Hitler's defeat, so memories were fresh. It seemed...very plausible. Everyone knew what horrors muggles were capable of."

Draco looked very nervous.

"It all snowballed from there. I'm sure he had bigger things in mind from the start, but he drew people in, first by saying that we ought to be afraid of muggles, then that we oughtn't to have to be, finally that we wouldn't have to be if we did away with most of the muggles and subjugated the rest. A preemptive strike. Get them before they got us. To a lot of people, it made a lot of sense." He took another drink. "If we could eliminate evil by doing away with muggles, I'd gladly stand on the front lines saying Avada Kedavra. But there will always be evil witches and wizards, so killing muggles won't accomplish anything. Better if we leave them alone, and make sure they don't know about us so they'll leave us alone."

Draco chewed over this for a while. "But Voldemort doesn't care about eliminating evil. So why did he really want to kill muggles?"

"Because he could, I suppose." He'd given the matter a lot of thought. "Also, their deaths--anyone's death---releases powerful magical energy. That's how he got to be the most powerful wizard in the world."

"Really?"

"Yes. Anyone--well, any reasonably competent wizard--could do what he did, if they were willing to kill hundreds of people." He hoped Draco wouldn't find the prospect tempting. He had, once. Becoming so powerful no one could hurt you? "That's why his followers are called Death Eaters--taking nourishment from death, you see? But that kind of power comes at a terrible price."

"What's the price?"

"Well. You remember about Dementors. You did them in Defense Against The Dark Arts?"

"Yes. And I got arrested by some three weeks ago."

Right. He'd forgotten. "It's a bit like that, only instead of suddenly feeling like you'll never be happy again, it happens little by little, until one day you realize that the only thing that brings you any pleasure is the rush of power you get when someone's life drains out into your hands." He tossed back the last of his whiskey and signaled for another.

"I already feel like I'll never be happy again," Draco pointed out.

"I know. I assure you, doing death magic will not make you feel any better." Severus spoke from experience. "Your current grief will....perhaps....fade. You seemed all right a couple of days ago, didn't you?"

"Mm," Draco admitted. "I didn't feel too bad that day. Granger getting that egg in the head was pretty funny."

"There you go. You don't need death magic, then, just physical comedy."

Draco smiled wanly. "I suppose so. But there are days she could get a dozen eggs in the face and I wouldn't crack a smile."

"It hasn't been long, you know. Once things settle down.... What I'm trying to say is, you needn't turn out like me. People dislike me because I'm a very unpleasant man, not because my parents were Death Eaters."

"You're not so bad," Draco said automatically. Narcissa had taught him some manners, even though he only bothered trotting them out for those he acknowledged as his equals. "Thought you acted that way on purpose. Cover."

"It may have started out that way," Severus admitted. "It's become a bit of a habit. You must remember, there were eleven years I thought--we all thought--Voldemort was gone. I didn't need a cover then." He wondered why it seemed important that Draco understand. "You finished eating? We ought to be heading back." They had been away too long already. Albus would be wondering where they were.

"Oh. All right. Do we use the fire here?"

"No. There's a portkey booth a few blocks away." He paid up and they went outside. It was dark, and a bit chilly. Snape conjured a pair of overcoats for them. "Keep close to me. Neighborhood we're heading into is a bit dodgy."

They'd only gone a block when two men in muggle clothes and balaclavas stepped out from an alley. But they weren't muggles--they carried wands, and one said, "Look, it's the traitor-spawn."

Snape fumbled for his wand. He never should have drunk two whiskies outside the castle. He found it in the pocket of his conjured overcoat and said, "Expelli--"

As the wizards said, "Crucio."

He expected the pain so much he almost felt it, until he saw Draco fall to the ground, mouth open in a silent scream.

"Expelliarmus!" But the two Death Eaters had pocketed their wands and taken to their heels. He ran after them; if they'd recognized him, they'd have to die.

They knew the city; he didn't. They were young men; Severus was almost forty, and felt older. Weaving through alleys, across vacant lots, and under buildings, they soon picked up enough of a lead to stop running and apparate away.

Severus leaned against a wall and caught his breath.

Draco. He had left Draco.

Straightening off the wall. He retraced his steps at a jog. But he got lost twice, and by the time he found his way back, a half hour had passed.

And Draco was gone.

He checked the area carefully, in case he'd mistaken the corner.

He hadn't.

Screaming silently, he apparated back to the castle gates.

#

"Albus. Professor Dumbledore. I lost him."

Dumbledore, for once, didn't offer him any sweets. "You lost..."

"Draco." He explained it all--the pub, the whiskey, his slowed reflexes. The curse. "And when I got back, he was gone. Didn't even occur to me there'd be more than two of them. Less than a dozen wizards in the whole city. What are we going to--he's probably dead already."

Dumbledore regarded him calmly. "He may not be. You'll find out, of course, if the Death Eaters have him. It's possible they don't. There are plenty of other things that may have happened. He may have gotten tired of waiting for you to come back and gone looking for you, for example."

Snape was slightly reassured. There were plenty of non-magical dangers, but Draco had his wand and would be able to handle them. Probably. Muggle Leeds was far less likely to kill him than Voldemort was.

"You'll check with the Death Eaters. Some of the other staff will go to Leeds and look for him."

"Y-yes. All right. Of course."

"Don't forget about your cover."

"If I have to blow my cover to hell to get him back, I'll do it."

"I know you would. But let's hope that won't be necessary."

"Yes. Yes, you're right." He turned to go.

"Severus?"

"Yes?"

"We'll find him."

Dumbledore sounded so certain, Snape wished he could believe him.

A few moments later, Severus was in Malfoy Manor, bowing low before the Dark Lord. "I need...information, my lord, on our operatives in Leeds."

"Pettigrew?"

"Um." The rat-man licked his lips. "N-nobody important. Two or three youngsters. Muscle, nothing more."

Then they wouldn't know him. The inner circles on each side thought he was with them; the rank and file of both organizations thought he was with the enemy. His all-important cover would be preserved.

Hallelujah.

"They snatched the Malfoy child right out of my hands. Dumbledore's very suspicious."

Voldemort frowned. "We did not order the traitor's spawn captured." We? That was new.

Snape's knees felt weak with relief. "Why would you?" he agreed. "He's nothing to us. But I must get him back, to reassure Dumbledore I'm still loyal to him."

"Give him the information he needs," Voldemort ordered Pettigrew. "Be sure you maintain your cover, when you recapture him. But try not to kill them. We don't have as many supporters as we once did."

Snape bowed again. If they had hurt Draco, he wouldn't just kill them. He'd kill them the hard way.