Promises to Keep

8. Walkaways

Snape had always been fast on the draw, but today he outdid himself. None of the three men had a chance; his "Petrificus Totalus!" caught them and held them in what looked like phenomenally awkward and uncomfortable positions. He didn't bother with casting it on Draco, but he had no reason to. Draco was unarmed and a cripple: even a man as cautious as Snape wouldn't view him as a threat. In that, Snape was overconfident. Draco was angry enough to strangle him barehanded if necessary, and he rather thought he was strong enough to do it if Snape gave him the opportunity.

Snape didn't. Snape stayed where he was, leaning against the doorframe, and said, "How is it that you came to invite Alastor Moody into my house?" in his most hateful drawl.

He would be expecting Draco to back down, to apologize, and Draco had done it before. No matter how angry he was, Snape always managed to make him feel like a small child having a tantrum. But today he was beyond that. "You told me my father was dead," he said quietly.

And Snape said, "Yes." He looked over at Lucius, his eyes softening. Draco had always known what lay between Snape and his father; it was the worst-kept secret in the wizarding world. He had grown up thinking of Snape as an uncle, a familiar and comforting presence, always at his father's shoulder. Snape did not have Lucius Malfoy's charisma, or his wealth, or his looks, but he had a cool head in a crisis, and he could be bitingly, viciously funny, or unexpectedly kind. The night Snape and Bellatrix had freed Lucius from Azkaban, Snape had come back alone, his robes streaked with blood. "Well. Obviously that was a lie."

"You told me he'd been hit by a lorry," Draco said. "You told me--."

"He killed Bellatrix," Snape said now. He did not look away from Lucius. His face didn't change at all, as he said it. "As soon as we were clear of Azkaban. As soon as he knew what Voldemort had asked of you, and that she'd failed to prevent it. I could hardly take him back to the Dark Lord after that. I Transfigured him, because I thought it would make him easier to manage."

He turned away, so that he was facing neither Draco nor Lucius. He put his wand in the back pocket of his jeans, and touched the mark on his arm with his other hand. Draco knew the gesture: he'd seen his father do it, and he knew that he did it himself. "He got away from me," Snape said, very softly. "He jumped down, and that fast, he was in the street. I don't think he even saw the truck. I thought he was dead, Draco, or I wouldn't have left him. You believe me, don't you? You believe that?"

"No," Draco answered. "I don't believe a goddamn word you said. You let me believe he was dead, these last five months, and maybe you had a reason--whatever, Snape. I'm done with this. Let them go, or kill them all, it's not my problem." His hands were shaking, but it didn't matter because Snape wasn't watching him. There was room, just, to get around the men and the mess in the middle of the kitchen.

He went around them, and past Snape, to his room. There was a plastic bag full of dirty clothes he'd meant to take to be washed, still on his floor. He dumped it out on his bed, and crammed it full again: clothes, mostly, and he swallowed his pride and took the ones Snape had given him. The books were Snape's, and he ran his fingers over them, saying goodbye before he left them. It might be years, or a lifetime, before he found a library as good. He put on his coat, and went out.

Draco was crying by the time he got to the end of the drive. It was very bright, and very cold, and he put a hand in his pocket and his fingers closed around the Portkey he used when he went to London for physical therapy. It was as good a place to go as any.

The charm took him to St. Mungo's outpatient treatment centre. From there he went to a Muggle bank machine and took the maximum--two hundred and fifty pounds--out of Snape's account. He didn't even feel guilty about it, much. He dropped Snape's bankcard and both Portkeys down a storm grate and got on the first handicapped-accessible bus he saw. He knew where he was going, even if he wasn't sure how to get there.

The most ancient and terrible house of Black had been abandoned during the war, but Draco didn't need to pry the boards away from the windows. He had to get out of the chair and drag it up the steps, but the doorknob turned under his hand and the door swung open. It was almost dark outside, and very dark inside, but he wasn't afraid. The house was sentient in the way only very old buildings could be, and it knew him, and welcomed him.

It had been his aunt's house when he was small, and his mother had brought him here twice a year until the old lady died. Someone had made an effort to shut the house up properly, though he thought that a lot of things were missing. The furniture was covered and the paintings turned to face the wall, except for Aunt Walburga's which had been destroyed. He touched the scorched wall where it had hung, wondering what had happened. Harry had told him they'd used the house for Order meetings before Dumbledore had died; he could not think of anything most of the Blacks who had lived in the house would hated more.

He'd bought food and bottled water and matches at one of the kiosks in the Underground, and now he lit the old, charred logs in the fireplace and settled down to eat and sleep. It was cold, and too quiet, and he could not help wondering where his father was sleeping tonight, and hoping it was not Azkaban. The bitter anger that had driven him this far was gone, and now he felt more sorry than anything else.

He tried to imagine what Snape had done after he'd gone. Transfigured all three of the men in his house into cats, probably, and dropped them off at the nearest shelter. He tried not to imagine what Harry had done, if he'd come as he usually did, and found Draco gone. How had he never noticed that Lucifer wasn't what he seemed? How had Draco never noticed? And that brought him full circle, back to his father, who was supposed to be dead.

He had said things to Lucifer the cat that he would never have dared say to Lucius Malfoy, things he had never meant to say to anyone. His father knew he was a cripple, and a coward; his father had watched him cry, and listened to him falling in love with Harry Potter. Draco had never been closer to him than he had these last few months, with all of the pressure to please or conform removed. He could not be sorry about it, however it had come about. He could not really be sorry about any of it.

The next morning someone banged on the front door at approximately dawn. Draco woke up, found the fire had gone out, and reluctantly dragged himself from his nest. There was not really anything to be gained from staying where he was: even if he had not been found, he could hardly spend the rest of his life in Grimmauld Place, subsisting off Snape's two hundred and fifty quid. His aunt had died in this house and they hadn't found the body for weeks. Draco had no intention of going the same way.

"All right," he yelled, as the banging continued. "Legless, here! Only so fast I can move."

"Hurry the fuck up," the person on the other side of the door said crossly. "It's freezing out here." It was Harry. Of course it was Harry.

Draco fumbled the door open and let him in. "It wasn't locked," he said, puzzled. "It doesn't even have a lock."

"This house hates me," Harry said morosely. His nose was red, and there were dark circles under his eyes, and he wasn't wearing gloves. "I thought--I thought what if you were dead? How could you just take off like that?"

"I've only been gone twelve hours," Draco protested, but he knew he was wrong. "I just--panicked, I guess. I still can't really believe it--either that my father's not dead or that Snape--. I'm sorry. I didn't mean for you to worry."

"Well, I did worry," Harry said crossly, but Draco thought that he saw a glimmer of a smile behind it. He knelt in front of Draco and cupped Draco's fingers in his cold ones. "Draco--I know it's too soon, but I thought we were friends, at least. You know that you can always come to me, when something like this happens. I mean, not that I think your father's going to be coming back from the dead again anytime soon. But, you know, I think I might--." He was blushing, Draco saw. It was adorable.

"Me too," he said, with a shyness that wasn't entirely feigned. "And I will, Harry, I promise. I just, when Moody of all people turned up. He was a shit choice, you know that, right?"

"Yeah," Harry said. "Believe me, it was not really a choice. And I tried to Owl you to warn you, but it must not have gotten there in time."

Draco shrugged. "As it turns out, Snape deserved it."

"Fucking Snape," Harry said. "We hate him now, right? It's okay to hate him?"

"For the moment, anyway." Draco couldn't keep himself from grinning, though. "Yeah, it's safe to hate him. If there's anything Malfoys are good at it, it's holding grudges. And hating people and loving them at the same time. Those two things were the foundation on which my parents' marriage was built."

"I thought your father was in love with Snape," Harry pointed out. "Which is just weird. Where did you sleep last night, anyway? It's freezing in here."

"I could show you," Draco said, not even pretending to be coy. "But I'd rather see where you slept last night."

"Bed it is, then," Harry smirked, but he leaned in, open mouthed, and kissed Draco like he meant it, so Draco didn't mind too much.