Come Hither

Chapter 5

Dragon Awaking & Awaiting

It suddenly occurred to Harry, above all the stress of the meeting, hearing about Dumbledore blocking his mail, and having to explain to his friends about his morning, that he was free for the afternoon; a grin instantly smacked into his face.

"Ron, fancy flying a few?"

At this, Ron's face predictably lit up, a grin of his own curved his lips, and he punched the air. "Yeah, mate!"

"Don't you two have some studying to do?" Hermione accused indignantly, frizzy hair aquiver.

Both boys faltered. They muffled quick, pointless arguments before deciding rather to turn tail before her eyes bore right through their souls. Harry flew upstairs to grab his Firebolt, Ron hot on his heels, though no broom awaited him there. After collecting the sole broom, it was time to face Hermione again. They took deep bracing breaths, looked each other in the eye, exchanging encouragement through them, cleared their throats, and marched stiffly from the dormitory to the portrait hole with their eyes fixed on it and nothing else, all the while Hermione's blazing glare keeping up with them.

Harry thought they would never get there.

However, as normality had a way of slapping one back into reality and out of one's weird, unrealistic anxieties such as thinking the entrance was getting further and further away, Harry and Ron finally ducked out of the portrait hole and ran to the broom shed with victorious twin grins on their faces. Their usual evasive tactics for Hermione were more strategic than what they had illustrated today, but since it produced the same result, they weren't complaining.

Harry continued walking, but slowly so Ron could grab an ordinary, rather less than ordinary, school-owned Shooting Star. They chatted idly whilst they made their way to the pitch, but then suddenly, having expected the pitch to be empty and just waiting for their unmitigated disposal, they caught a flash of platinum-blond hair.

Ron's knuckles instantly turned white around his obsolete broom, and a formidable scowl took residence upon his face. Harry frowned angrily at the unexpected presence of Malfoy, who was sitting right there in his elegantly haughty grace as usual: his arms folded regally and legs crossed. His pale face, incredibly blank, wiped of all emotion, somehow still exuded an undercurrent of arrogant confidence. His expensive, clean robes flowed all over his lithe form; and of course, that distinctive white-blond hair was left to hang long and gracefully, covering his neck and a little of his upper back. They stood there, unmoving for a few seconds before regaining their faculties. Refusing to turn around and let Malfoy spoil their flying afternoon by his mere presence, they ploughed ahead.

As they appeared, Malfoy's head and lazy gaze swept slowly upon them and he eyed them blankly, as though they were unworthy of his complete consideration. He followed their progress as they swept onto the green grass. Harry and Ron both maintained their scowls in his direction. When they reached where they were to kick off, Harry finally let go of Ron's arm that he had held in order to restrain him from going to look for a verbal fight with Malfoy, although all the while, he had heard the second youngest Weasley maintain a rather creative string of derogatory superlatives, slamming everything from Malfoy's parentage to his looks.

The air was nice and still at that time of the day, but there had been a little chilly breeze in the morning. Now, however, it had panned out and left warm, euphoria-inducing bliss in its wake. The sun was bright and high, casting long shards through the hoops. Harry peered at Ron uncertainly, trying to release some self-consciousness that had been instigated by Malfoy's presence right there in one of the lower bleachers.

Neither had to be uneasy for long, however, because as soon as they blasted off the ground, Malfoy got up and left the ground in that swagger that Harry disliked immensely. He disliked it because there were so many people who tried to imitate it as some kind of source of confidence or some other ridiculous reason, and they just couldn't get right! This frustrated Harry because he couldn't understand why it was becoming so popular, secretively of course; the imitators tried to put a new twist into it but one can only do so much to a walk, so its precursor could be traced back to Malfoy quite easily.

Ron and Hermione had spotted this trend as well. Of course, they'd never talk about it, but they did catch each other's eyes a few times whenever someone was to be seen attempting the almighty, irreproducible swagger of Draco Malfoy. It just wasn't possible. Theodore Nott was one of them. Harry, Ron, and Hermione knew this one for sure, although they didn't know his name. Swagger Bloke, the school called him. The trio suspected he had a self-esteem problem, or he was treated as an underdog in his House, or not even treated but ignored flat out. Another reason why Harry hated Malfoy's swagger was that he actually recognized the fact that nobody could reproduce it. In his mind, attributing Malfoy with this reverence and something exclusive as this apparent gift was as repugnant as blaspheme.

Harry and Ron did a few manoeuvres and raced around the goal posts for a while before calling it quits and retiring at nearly two o'clock in the afternoon. Upon returning to the Gryffindor common room, they braced themselves for the admonition undoubtedly due to them by one Hermione Granger on the subject of neglecting their academic commitments for fleeting whims such as flying on broomsticks, and since they were both raised in the Muggle world, Harry could fully comprehend and incur the mocking behind the particular phrasing of those words, whereas to Ron it would probably just elicit rebellious mutterings that flying was a worthwhile past-time if one was considering playing for the Chudley Cannons upon graduation, vastly preferred over attending universities and sucking up to the Professor Strolms therein.

Now they were forced to do their homework under Hermione's intense glare after receiving the anticipated chastisement, but fortunately, no flying brooms were mentioned. Thus, they buckled down and got right down to the nitty-gritty of their schoolwork. Ron was dismayed to find he had a backlog of homework dating back two weeks prior, and was Harry, who was sprung upon - or at least if felt he was - by a twelve-inch essay on Restorative Potions, as well as one on History of Magic asking him to compare two goblin wars that had occurred in history. Harry supposed he couldn't appeal for a concession from Hermione now since he had no excuses such as going to meetings with Dumbledore. A deflated Harry began on his schoolwork. Hermione shot him an approving glance when he grasped eagle his quill in his hands.

A few hours later, Harry gave up and, of course, Ron joined him quickly afterwards. Harry suspected he had been keeping an eye on him and had waited for him to do just this before he, too, threw in the towel as though he had been actually applying his mind rigorously in the academia. Apparently, Hermione seemed content with the amount of time they had spent on their homework, for she permitted them to play Exploding Snap, then wizard chess.

Harry soon found himself getting tired and yawning, so he went to take a shower and then let sleep find him, forgetting, or too tired, to do his meditation. Consequently, his mind was more susceptible to his wandering thoughts, amongst other things. A stray thought prodded his mind as he lay in his covers: why was Malfoy so tame back when they were to start flying and didn't offer any of his snide remarks, perhaps also derogatory commentary on their flying...?

***

"I requested the document, Wormtail, what are you useful for?" Harry mildly hisses in his cold, high-pitched voice at the snivelling, rat-like man kneeling in front of him. Harry releases a frustrated hiss echoed by a great snake poised along the top of his throne-like seat, and he beckons a tall figure closer.

"Lucius, I believe your son is still seeking my pardon for his incompetence. The document I seek, your son can get it. Considering he is still to perform for us in the near future--" Harry smiles leeringly, "--he can, for the time being, exercise those skills in procuring what I desire. If Wormtail here--" Harry looks down disdainfully at the grovelling man on the floor, now profusely kissing the hem of his robes to seek to be absolved, "--is to be believed, then young Draco's chances are highest to obtain it." Harry stares fixedly into the blank grey slates of one of his most prominent followers. "See to it that he gets it."

An almost imperceptible pause follows before, "Of course, My Lord." Another, more prominent, deliberate pause follows before, "When do you need it?"

Harry considers this for a while, narrowing his red slits. He strokes the great snake, whose unblinking eyes were fastened upon... "Lucius, you are one of my most trusted Death Eaters. Clinical, absolute, proficient, intelligent... you have stood behind me for a long spell... and as such I will grant your son adequate time; Lord Voldemort recognizes loyalty. It's not crucial to acquire it for the task, but he should, nonetheless, be able to produce it before I initiate the takeover, and only you know when this is."

Lucius bows his head. "Yes, My Lord, as you wish."

***

"Harry!"

Harry rushed back to consciousness to find himself thrashing on his bed, sweat covering both skin and sheets. Ron was hovering over his open bed curtains, wearing a worried frown, and his hand was on his shoulder. Harry pushed up on his bed, heavily panting, his heart pounding, shaky, feeling nauseous. Wiping sweat off his brow with the back of his shaking hand, and jabbing his glasses on his face, he tried to regulate his breathing, to shrug off the disturbing images and disgusting knowledge with which the vision left him.

"Ron," he rasped weakly with a coarse throat.

"It's okay, mate, it was just a dream, relax." Ron sat on his the bed and rubbed his back and shoulders calmingly.

"Ron," Harry said again, desperate for any consoling human contact in this dire hour. "I have to- have to tell- Dumbledore. I have to tell Dumbledore..."

Ron understood this; Harry's nightmares were sometimes visions of snippets from Voldemort's point of view. "You want me to come with you, or should I wake Hermione?" he asked.

Harry shook his head. "No, I- I'll be fine, I just need to find Dumbledore, quickly before I forget."

Ron nodded firmly and let Harry rush quickly out of the fifth year boys' dormitory after going into the bathroom and out, grabbing his Weasley sweater along, since it was likely to be chilly outside.

Harry dazedly, absent-mindedly rushed through the corridors leading up to the headmaster's office on shaky legs, his thoughts demoted to simple instructions such as 'just keep walking until the phoenix gargoyle.' After a flat utterance of "Lemon Drops," Harry ascended the staircase in a robotic fashion and then rapped on the door - no answer; he rapped again, but still, there was no cheerful 'Come in!' After being in a vague, surreal state of urgency, disbelief, and disgust, Harry was now quickly jarred into panic at the once more apparent absence of his headmaster. He knew there was no point to knocking again but he did anyway and still, there came no trace of Dumbledore's fortifying voice.

Harry began hyperventilating; sheer horror and panic overwhelmed him for a moment in such intensity that he thought he'd almost black out. He wheeled about, his chest beginning to heave again, his eyes searching aimlessly for a clue on what to do next as they swept the vestibule, which was suddenly coming across as perfidious. He couldn't think logically at the moment - he was too tense and too alarmed. Where was Dumbledore? Why couldn't he just hear a merciful 'Come in!' from the other side of the door just to relieve him of this dread? So close yet so far. Harry traversed the spiral staircase once again, his mind producing only fragmented thoughts. He needed to be clear-headed in order to figure out what to do next. What... what does one do when one can't reach someone who's somewhere else...?

Hedwig!

As soon as his feet left the stairs, he bolted for the Owlery.

"Harry, what brings you to my office at such late hours?"

The words hit him like a train, making him stop so abruptly that the rest of his mass seemed to slam back into itself, and before he could gather himself completely and focus his eyes on Dumbledore properly, his mouth was already on a stream of words: "Professor Dumbledore I had a dream and Voldemort is planning something about taking over something or some place and Malfoy is closer to it and he said something about exercises and Voldemort needs this document to--"

"Calm down, Harry," Dumbledore said softly, raising a blackened hand to halt Harry's breathless tale. He was standing strangely close to the wall.

Amidst all the alarm and distress that flooded Harry, he did notice the black, shrivelled hand. Now that he thought about it, Dumbledore looked extremely pale and barely able to stand. His eyes were dulled, sunken blue deserts, his form was shaking slightly, and his face had that brittleness about it again, but all the more pronounced. Harry was struck motionless for a good few seconds, unknowing as to what to make of this at all.

Dumbledore smiled. "Harry, I need you to call Professor Snape to my office."

Harry remained standing there with a hanging jaw, widened eyes, and frozen feet, shocked at what his mind was telling him, which was far different from what he believed.

"Harry--" Suddenly, Dumbledore was stumbling forward, but he caught himself and leaned against the wall.

Unable to comprehend this new fallibility and absence of omnipotence of his headmaster, Harry ran not to Dumbledore to assist him but dashed the other way, away from him, away from that which he couldn't believe, and towards the dungeons to Professor Snape. He ran and ran and ran, kept running towards Snape, towards Snape, towards...

"Snape. Snape. Snape."

The cold air whipped past, his feet pummelled the dungeon flagstone floor as he sprinted, echoing loudly in the dimly lit corridors, the wan torchlights blurring past him like neon lights. He didn't even realize his mantra was just above a whisper, his breath coming out as beyond-frightened sobs. He reached the door and banged on it as though his own life depended on it, or Dumbledore's life depended on it. He wrenched the doorknob maniacally, crazily, and knocked and wrenched again until finally, it was pulled open and, resplendent in his sullen glory, stood the Potions master, Severus Snape.

"What is it, Potter?" Snape hissed through clenched teeth, his cold black pits glaring at him vehemently. "What are you doing out of your common room in the dead of night?"

Harry held those cold eyes with his own green ones, too relieved and breathless to speak for a moment. "Dumbledore, dying," he panted. "Dumbledore says I must come to you, he's- he's- he's- he's hand is black and he looks ill and he almost collapsed..."

Snape regarded him for an excruciating while, his black marbles assessing intensely, searching his face or his soul. Then, without warning, Snape just... swooped past him like a bat! His black robes slapped him across the face and billowed furiously behind his tall figure as he tore down the corridor. Harry had been taken aback by the sudden movement but soon followed, and thought he caught a glimpse of platinum-blond hair within the Potions master's private quarters.

Snape was unbelievably fast for his age; his long strides were covering huge ground, which Harry had to match with two of his own. He was a black bat flying down the dungeons corridor mechanically in elegant, deft strides. Harry couldn't help but notice the stark paleness in Snape's face, contrasting sharply with his dark attire; he fleetingly wondered what significance Dumbledore held for Snape.

Anticipation and dread getting the better of him, Harry quickly ran round the last corner and didn't see Dumbledore standing in the corridor. Marginally relieved by this and assuming Dumbledore managed to get up into his office, Harry slowed down to a very swift walk, at twice Snape's speed just to keep up with the man. They soon reached the gargoyle and rather flung the password at it at the same time. Both were too panicked, Snape secretively, of course, to react to this and dashed up the stairs.

In the momentary hiatus of silence and calm during the ascendance of the revolving stairs, Harry's erratic breathing seemed to rile up Snape, and as it was, his set jaw and slight frown indicated his agitation at the mention of Dumbledore possibly being mortally hurt. "Calm yourself this instant, Potter!" he snapped, his voice ringing in the spiralling staircase.

Snape deigned to knock but forcefully swung the large oaken doors open with impressive force.

And there Dumbledore sat. Harry would never admit how... how... That picture just wasn't right. It wasn't possible. He was Albus Dumbledore; he was never to submit to menial things such as pain or anything less than invincibility. Harry couldn't process that image that greeted him when he entered the office, which he now regretted.

Snape approached the man, and his eyes took in all of the form, resting on the blackened, deadened left hand of Dumbledore's. He quickly reached out for it, held it in his hand delicately, and examined it silently, a fierce frown on his face.

"Severus."

Snape refused to meet Dumbledore's eyes.

That stuttered, ragged, desperate voice crushed something inside Harry that made his stomach clench painfully and plunge to his feet, dragging with it his breath and the remaining blood from his face; it was more than he could handle. He pulled towards him the chair he usually occupied and fell weakly into it; he didn't want to approach the scene any further than he had. Seeing instant death and seeing live, current sufferance like this were two very different things. Harry watched as a frail Dumbledore lay there, slouching meekly in his tall-backed chair, breathing in jagged rasps; face gone pale and lined seemingly more than usual with wrinkled pain; cerulean eyes more transparent and glassy, with an unhealthy tint to them such that they were almost powder-blue, unseeing, empty orbs.

The portraits were all watching this avidly. Some had even come to the foreground of their portraits and themselves against it such that their features flattened as though pressing themselves up against a window.

"Potter." Harry's head snapped up from Dumbledore's blackened hand to Snape. "Tell Draco to bring me some VRP, he'll know what it is, as well as a rudimentary Healing potion - a Level-A one, and a healing salve. Now!" he yelled urgently, for Harry had been about to stutter idle, incoherent questions about the Potions jargon, but at the last word, he bolted out of the office, more than relieved to escape the sight of a seemingly dying Dumbledore. Wait, that couldn't be possible. He couldn't think like that. Dumbledore wouldn't die, he couldn't die, and he most definitely should not die...

Harry found himself streaking to the dungeons once more, for Malfoy this time.

The door barged open, and a deranged, panting teenager entered.

"Malfoy!"

In his 'alarm,' Snape hadn't told Malfoy to stay behind for whatever reason he was there in the first place, so Malfoy might not even be in here; this quadrupled Harry's horrid trepidation, and the infuriatingly displaced calmness of the meek dungeon torchlight flooding the room; the warm fireplace blazing, casting tangerine forks upon the various vases and vials of potion ingredients; and the soft, plush, dark emerald carpet did all but calm Harry's frayed nerves; he wanted to smash something, but he had to get Malfoy. His menaced footsteps echoed loudly as he stomped into the next room to search it, but he stopped short at the sudden appearance of Malfoy. His shock was only for a few microseconds.

"Malfoy, I need some healing potions- er, er, a- er, some VRP! Yes, and level A Healing Potion, and a healing salve. Now, Malfoy! I don't have time for your sarcastic bullshit!" Even in a time like this, he sensed his words felt strange, because he couldn't recall Malfoy being sarcastic once since the start of term.

Malfoy kept silent and studied Harry, or rather studied the air in front of Harry, as though sniffing out an opportunity. Harry made an incredulous, strangled, gasping sound at the back of his throat at Malfoy's inaction in a time like this, but Malfoy spoke before Harry could get a competent grasp on an English word.

"Something happened to Dumbledore, hasn't it?" said the slightly inquisitive, mostly dispassionate, silky voice.

Harry stared, not even glared, at him for a few seconds, not comprehending Malfoy asking asinine questions when Harry here was in dire need of a couple of life-saving potions. Before he even registered his mouth opening, he had bellowed, "Yes, Dumbledore's sick, he's dying!" Why did Harry say that last part? Obviously, Malfoy would want just that, but in the face of the true threat of death, Harry's primeval instincts told him that even a school archrival surely couldn't understate the gravity of a death, even if it was Dumbledore, for whom Malfoy had no love.

And, indeed, Malfoy swallowed with what looked like unease, and averted his gaze; perhaps Malfoy wasn't a murderer after all. He then seemed to be battling with himself for some reason, and at Harry's frustrated grunt and attempt to go forward and manhandle him personally, Malfoy swept past towards the shelves lined with various monstrosities suspended in liquids of diverse colours and consistencies.

"Level-A Healing Potion, quite strong. 'Aggressive' - the strongest he has here," Malfoy was muttering to himself, perhaps to dispel some of his own anxiety. "Won't find it here."

Harry was this close to pouncing on the pale git. His insides were screaming that he was wasting time; Dumbledore was fading where he was, and all Malfoy could do was say he won't find the potions here?

"Healing salve," Malfoy declared, throwing Harry a jar with a yellow, oily substance like petroleum jelly. Harry's shaky Seeker hands caught it, slight relief rushing in him through the hand and down his body.

"...VRP, no that's also quite strong." Malfoy made his way past Harry and into Snape's private quarters, muttering, "Merlin, what did that old coot do to himself...?"

Harry held all the acerbic replies to that rhetorical question hanging on his tongue. Just give me the fuckin' potions so I can run back and give them to Snape! His vision was growing white with blotches of purple, and his heavy breathing was making him a little dizzy. Harry couldn't handle standing there doing nothing and left in the room alone and thus made to go into the other, but Malfoy barred him with a curt glare. What seemed like eons later, Malfoy emerged from the room with two more vials - a wide one with a purple liquid and the other, a bright-blue fluid.

As soon as Harry's hands clamped around the two containers, he flew for the door. He was only aware of a second pair of footsteps when he had reached the last corner to the corridor of Dumbledore's gargoyle. Too distracted with his current mission to question their presence, he ploughed on to the golden phoenix.

"Lemon drops!"

Up the stairs, the duel motion of him and Malfoy ascending the stairs whispered a brief air of camaraderie between them, but this was quickly dispelled when Harry broke from the spiral stairs and shoved the doors open. Dismissing Phineas Nigellus Black's comment of "Ah, I see we have a Malfoy in our midst," he ran to Snape, who was now casting some spells in an urgent rumble, his eyes wide open and his wand flailing about Dumbledore's person.

Snape's face shot to him, and he quickly plucked the potions out of his hands before he could blink. He took the healing salve first and smoothed it over Dumbledore's charred hand carefully and thoroughly. He then proceeded to shove, rather, the two other potions down Dumbledore's throat and, thereafter continuing with casting spells on him, Harry watching on nervously as Snape's face twisted in concentration, casting spell after spell upon Dumbledore. Why didn't they--

"I'll go call Madam Pomfrey!" Harry burst out, and he went for the door, but before he could go a few steps forward, with the whites of his eyes, he observed that had this had a powerful effect on Dumbledore: the once closed eyes opened weakly and focussed on him, and for a moment shot to Malfoy, as though the other boy's presence was unexpected, but then back to Harry, who couldn't look at them but couldn't look away either.

"Yes, the young man is quite right, Dumbledore, dare I say," said Black, frowning worriedly down at Dumbledore.

"No, Harry, that won't be necessary," said the dry, coarse voice of Dumbledore. "And thank you for your concern, Phineas."

Black snorted loudly, looked aside, and stuck his nose in the air as though Dumbledore had insulted him rather than complimented him that he had a heart.

Harry remained rooted to the spot by both the confusion of Dumbledore refusing professional help and the fact that he might just have made it through. He watched as Dumbledore moved sluggishly out of his slouching posture and rearranged himself in his high-back chair.

"Thank you, Severus, my boy," Dumbledore said gratefully in a more stable, modest voice, at least with an echo of its previous healthiness.

A blank, dispassionate expression slid into place in Snape's profile at the term of affection, and he avoided looking at Harry's and Malfoy's persons. He drawled, "And exactly how did you manage to acquire such an injury?" he asked.

Dumbledore dismissively waved him that same blackened hand, which, Harry saw, looked just the same as it had minutes ago when he appeared in the corridor, only a little shiny due to the salve Snape had applied. "That is not of pertinence, Severus. What is, though, is our two guests here." Dumbledore's exhausted and still pale face studied Harry and Malfoy.

Snape's cold, black eyes took in the presence of Malfoy impassively and then Harry, favouring him with a mild scowl, which was quite a phenomenon, as it was apparent that Snape usually was naturally repulsed by Harry enough to give him a perfunctory, heated glare upon sight.

"Mr Malfoy, may I ask why it is you're here?"

The words seemed somehow guarded and bore an undertone of suspicious caution.

Malfoy looked surprised at his address, but it didn't delay him too long from speaking.

"Potter had come barging into Severus' quarters and demanding healing potions," said Malfoy superciliously and defensively, and Phineas Nigellus Black's quiet expression of fondness turned into one of surprise, undoubtedly astonished that a supposed refined aristocrat was speaking in such tones. "And quite strong ones at that - Severus - I mean, Professor Snape - hasn't even published the VRP one yet - and then Professor Snape went with him. Then Potter came back making quite the noise and saying you were on your deathbed, or death-chair, I should say, so I was curious. You know, curiosity - that thing that compels you to find out what happened, makes you approach the scene of an accident and look over the Mediwizards' backs to see just how badly injured is the person. Exciting stuff, really."

'He's smirking,' Harry thought, beside himself, his green eyes sparkling at Malfoy almost vacantly. He's actually smirking..."No one asked you to--"

"That was all?" asked Dumbledore, cutting across Harry.

"Yes, I am still speaking, Potter," spat Malfoy, those being his first words to Harry this year. Black was looking more and more unimpressed with Malfoy. "No, actually, I had business with Professor Snape, I was merely seeking him," Malfoy said silkily. His cold, grey eyes swept over to Snape, silently questioning, inquisitive, absorptive of every nuance of Snape's face to decipher the most infinitesimal of reactions. "See, he was about to tell me something interesting, and we got interrupted by Potter here." And as though Harry and Dumbledore weren't in the room, and still staring carefully at Snape, he went on, "And I wouldn't mind to know as well just why he was so, er, passionate about healing you, almost as though he really didn't want you to die..."

The muscles around Snape's eye twitched for a moment as though they were about to narrow them upon Malfoy, but they didn't narrow and remained cold, black, and almost dead, as usual. "Mr Malfoy, are you implying that I should have left the headmaster to die?" he asked, his tone delicately incredulous. "Granted, it's not down in my contract to come to the headmaster's aid in the event he or she falls to ill, but surely, I should exercise some common humanity, ought I not? That which some of us haven't enjoyed recently and dare I say won't in the very near future...?"

The little complexion in Malfoy's face was bleached away; Malfoy looked quite shocked. His glare at Snape appeared fixed and stunned.

Harry's eyes bounced from Snape to Malfoy, and after giving this treated but no less black hand a cursory glance, Dumbledore's voice cut through the silence: "Your professor is done here, it looks like. Severus, I believe your attention was requested."

"I believe my ears are functional enough to register sound a few feet from myself, thank you, Headmaster," Snape replied acerbically, glaring at Dumbledore, and his lips curling back as his eyes fell on the shrivelled hand. He swiftly glided to the door, this time having enough mind to give Harry the perfunctory heated glare. Malfoy, whose eyes still stared at Snape in astonishment and almost looking betrayed, followed him.

The two of them journeyed to his quarters in silence, footsteps clicking in the long dark corridors of the dungeons. When they reached the door, Snape swung it open and let Malfoy in. Said man stopped at a drawer, opened it, and withdrew a bottle of a golden liquid, and a small glass. He went over to one of the green couches and sat, crossing his legs, opening the large bottle, and poured the liquid in the glass, thereafter replacing the cap on the bottle and placing it on the low table between him and Malfoy. He stared into the fire burning in the grate.

"I don't suppose I can have some of that," Malfoy said, looking longingly at Snape's glass from the suede emerald couch on which he sat.

"I daresay you'll enjoy it soon enough at the Slytherin Quidditch victory party following a triumph over Hufflepuff after you've 'illegally' smuggled it in," said Snape, without looking away from the fire.

"...That's not funny, Severus."

"What's not funny?" asked Snape, and he turned to look at Malfoy. "The fact you actually won't because you'll have shut yourself inside your Prefect's room, too afraid to venture out? Or the fact that you won't participate in the match because you were petitioned off?"

"Both," Malfoy hissed with defiant meekness.

"Naturally," said Snape, smiling slightly. "I was not impressed by your little speech back there," he said quietly, his dark eyes staring through his black curtain of greasy hair.

Malfoy shrugged. "I, on the other hand, was very impressed by how awfully worried you were about Dumbledore back there..."

Snape raised an eyebrow artistically. "How do you mean?" he asked, as he swished the liquid in his glass.

Malfoy studied Snape's sallow face for a spell. There was a seemingly infinite length of time between the two seconds that passed, but Malfoy finally shook his head dismissively, something lingering there in its leave, though.

"You were about to tell me something interesting before we were interrupted by Potter," he said rather, but Snape waved an alcohol-free hand dismissively.

"Never mind that. It's far less alarming than what you had to tell me. There's no place for spite now, Draco - you should have indulged them and attempted to lift those script-concealing charms on Dumbledore's note to Potter for them on Friday so they could scurry off with it to their fathers to relay to the Dark Lord, even if they jeer at you daily about going to be their father's plaything, because not doing so is tantamount to treachery, when you know the Dark Lord wants all information about this school and Dumbledore given to him. Fauss, whom has some fierce vendetta against you, as you've told me, and his friends now instead are going to tell of your detachment from the ultimate cause. Your almost non-existence nobility and prominence did not need another blow as such, and you're certainly not helping your ostracism, which your suffer because your competence in the Unforgivables after I took painstaking effort to teach you over the summer left much to be desired."

Malfoy looked up from the emerald carpet. "What, you expect an apology for having wasted your time and efforts?" he asked with a small, derisive laugh.

"Not an apology," said Snape smoothly, in spite of the effects of the alcohol he had just swigged. "Nothing at all; you haven't wondered why Lucius hadn't gone over the Unforgivables with you himself since the Dark Lord returned after he had done so ever since you could walk, have you?"

Malfoy didn't speak, and he resumed his study of the emerald carpet.

"Yes, I suppose not," sneered Snape. "The trappings of youth..."

"I don't suppose you aren't going to tell me, are you?" said Malfoy aloofly, who appeared not to appreciate Snape's patronizing words.

"Forgiving your shortcomings," said Snape slowly, "on that event night of your gather and Macnair took you to the floor and had your legs spread apart like some of the Muggle fodder we enjoy while we literally paint the town red with their own bl--"

"You're comparing me to a Muggle," said Malfoy, "on top of everything else?"

"Yes, Draco, because you should grow well-used to the idea of having your legs spread apart, it is something that will undoubtedly feature more and more in your routine from now on. A handsome portion of my extra-curricular colleagues aren't married - and it's not a great mystery why - and they had made their lust for you plain in our latest gathering, though I'm hard-pressed to see what they find so attractive in you."

The aloofness, defiance, and derision seemed to ebb away from Malfoy at once at Snape's words, and he stayed quiet like a timid dog, while Snape sneered at him again as his pitiless eyes gave him a blatant, dismissive once over.

"I don't think we should continue with your trips here; you're growing too well acquainted with my quarters for my liking."

Malfoy suddenly looked up, and there was surprise in his face and a trace of fear.

"Why?" he asked, almost accusingly.

"Because," said Snape, his cold, black eyes looking straight into Malfoy grey ones, "it is futile. I don't doubt your numb disbelief has shortly made way for full-blown terror when it finally sunk it that, on the night of the first Hogsmeade weekend, you're to be served to the Death Eaters; your body to be tainted and defiled in ways I daren't imagine; their hands on you, Draco, hm? Penetrating you, washing away the gross naivety you hold dear... and the Dark Lord, worst of all..."

Snape trailed off, the name hissing through his lips, and as he shut his grey eyes, a chill seemed to run through Malfoy's body.

Several muscles were working in Malfoy's jaw. "Stop it. What are you trying to do to me?" he said softly, after he opened his eyes again.

"I'm trying to shatter your pride," said Snape bluntly.

Malfoy stared at him, and a pause followed. "What? Why?"

"Because I care about you," Snape said flatly.

"Then why are you doing this?" yelled Malfoy, sliding forward in his seat.

"Because," Snape said calmly, looking into Malfoy's eyes again, whereupon Malfoy looked away, "it seems to me it will be the only way for you to cope with your... Unforgivable predicament, shall we say, for I do not have the slightest hope that you will master Occlumency in time. Since coming here for a handful of times a week, you have convinced yourself you have been tentatively - inch by inch - built a very thin thread of ability to cope, but as the day nears it brings back the same amount of overwhelming dread you felt weeks ago, doesn't it Draco, shattering - piece by piece - your tediously garnered resolve, leaving you to resign once more to its magnitude?"

Malfoy was breathing hard, he was glaring at Snape, his potion-maker hands were fisted at their sides, but he did not speak.

"So you need the temporarily, false solace you can get from me, and I only humour you because you're my godson. But tell me, do you yourself think you'll be ready in time?" asked Snape, his voice delicately inflected to indicate his scepticism. "Do you think you will do better in Occlumency than you have done in the Unforgivables, where you cannot even perform a simple Cruciatus Curse, let alone the Killing Curse, Merlin forbid?"

"Fuck you," growled Malfoy, shaking.

"No, Draco, it is you who will be fucked," said Snape, and Malfoy recoiled as though he had taken a physical blow, grey glaring eyes stunned with disbelief. There was a moment's silence before,

"SHUT UP!" boom Malfoy abruptly, leaning off his seat again. "SHUT THE FUCK UP! WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME?"

"I've answered that question already," drawled Snape quietly, his bored, black eyes staring up at Malfoy, who had flown to his feet.

"YOU WOULDN'T BE SAYING THESE THINGS IF YOU CARED ABOUT ME!"

"Sit down, you're making a noise."

"I don't want to sit down!"

"Sit - down, Draco."

After breathing hard through his nose, killing Snape seven times over with his eyes, Malfoy flung himself into the couch.

"I want to continue doing Occlumency," Malfoy said, his voice quivering heavily with the strain to keep from shouting. "I will get better at it."

Snape stared at him for a very long time before he said, "You're sure?"

"Yes," said Malfoy a little breathlessly.

"Very well," said Snape. "Remember, block out your emotions and thoughts - remain blank." He took out his wand and held out his wand to Malfoy's forehead, his other hand still holding his Ogden's Old Firewhisky.

"Legilimens!"

Meanwhile, Harry and Dumbledore were left alone after the two Slytherins had left.

Harry's swallow was embarrassingly audible in the silence in which they sat.

He had averted his eyes, studying the scarlet carpet, not knowing what to say to the person he had nearly witnessed die, a man that held such prominence in his mind and heart.

Dumbledore let the silence reign.

Then, in the still quiet, Harry's voice came: "I had a dream I wanted to tell you about."

This was met with silence.

Dumbledore studied Harry from where he sat. "Yes, Harry?" he prompted finally.

Harry said nothing for a while, but a few seconds later, he finally opened his mouth to speak again. "Voldemort's planning something."

Only now that his heart rate was down to a normal, and his rational thinking had come back, that the pieces fell together so beautifully and the realization hit Harry with full force, or it was supposed to; after nearly experiencing another death, this newer alarm came only with a vague numbness that was insulting to its urgency, and left Harry impassive, beyond any more capacity to react to shock for the night.

Dumbledore took the words in without a change of expression. "Undoubtedly so, Harry," he said kindly.

Harry then looked up at his recovering professor.

"I think Voldemort's planning to take over Hogwarts."