As Pure As Snow

7

Once I had pointed out an ice halo to my son, when he still followed me on my morning walks, trudging short legs through the snow behind me as only a seven-year-old would. He nodded solemnly at the spectacle, insisted that he was beyond the need for such elaborate hoaxes, entertaining as they were, and bid me ask whichever fool servant I had sent behind some bush to return to the mansion before he caught his death of cold.

Time passes without one noticing; seasons turn, winter arrives. And children grow up, and grow distant, and winter grows wearisome.

8

Harry had been sulking.

He tipped his wingback chair down and pulled gleaming oxford lace-ups onto the table, glancing idly at various object d'art and other office extremities. Draco's door, behind him, was shut and silent as the grave that he seemed always to have one foot in. Merlin alone knew what the boy did in there: perhaps the same thing as Harry, which would be nothing.

A beep startled him- laughable really, considering his lately-retired position, and Lucius' curt voice filled the air.

"Potter, get in here."

Harry scowled, and considered ignoring his summons, but he found himself leaving his office and wandering out into the hall, walking down the carpeted length of oak-panelled walls with the portrait heads of past Ministers, their eyes following him.

Scrimgeour's portrait blanched at the sight of his murderer, but wisely held his painted tongue, and Harry couldn't resist winking at it before he entered the receiving hall where Lucius received his appointments. It was much grander than Draco's, and came with a privately keyed fireplace warded with spells vicious enough to make even Harry cringe.

"Harry, my boy!"

"Undersecretary Slughorn," he acknowledged, with a barely respectful inclination of his head.

"Oh, balderdash. As we are practically holding the same positions now, I insist you call me Horace."

"As you wish, Horace." Despite the greasy smile, Harry could almost smell the fear and unease on his ex-professor. Slughorn would after all be in a position- perhaps the only position- to be privy to any knowledge concerning Harry's surreptitious life after the war. The rest of London still gaped at his sudden, unexplained presence in the Ministry alongside Draco, although Lucius had clamped down ruthlessly hard on speculation, both amongst his Ministry officials and the press.

Dead men, after all, told no tales.

As soon as Slughorn closed the door behind him, Harry dropped his respectful facade and scowled at the man who was burrowed behind a massive desk fanned with papers. The government plaque burnished behind Lucius like a halo, dramatised by yards of twisting velvet in bottle green and yellow. An avatar took up the table space of the upper right corner, shaped into the scales of justice. Three tongues of green flame flickered insistently on one of the scales, making Harry wonder whose call Lucius was ignoring.

"I hate this," Harry said without preamble. He gestured at the imposing office. "It's like being in a gilded cage."

For a brief moment it looked like Lucius was on the verge of agreeing. "I really don't care either way, Mister Potter."

Mister Potter indeed. He hadn't heard that phrase in years, and didn't care for it now.

Harry pulled out one of the three Louis XIV chairs from the head of the desk and settled down, crossing his legs and taking his time rearranging his pinstripe suit around him as he asked in a deliberately casual tone, "Slughorn, Lucius? Are we feeling nostalgic?"

"Do you really want to disapprove of my new Undersecretary... Harry?" The warning in his employer's voice was none too veiled. "You will do well not to underestimate Horace. Besides, the old one was almost certainly in my ex-deputy's pocket."

"Which you wouldn't have had to worry about if I'd been allowed to deal with him," Harry snapped.

"Merlin help me with defiance of boys who think they know everything. Ludovic is not a Death Eater on the run, Harry. You cannot waltz into his Auror-patrolled mansion and crack open five skulls, casual as you please, without calling the whole of London upon your pretty head."

"You think my head is pretty?" Harry preened.

"You are retired," Lucius ground out. "Your new role is to be the permanent Acting-Secretary to the Deputy Minister, and I suggest you start acting immediately. Fun and games are over, Harry. I need you here in the Ministry now, and here you will stay."

"All right, dammit," Harry husked. "But only because you called me pretty."

Lucius opened his mouth to retort, but a raised voice beyond the door distracted the two men, and a moment later Draco barged through the doors, looking ill, angry, and out of breath. Harry saw Slughorn's hapless face a second before the doors swung shut, and felt a sudden commiserating connection with him- for it was likely Draco had not forgotten being overlooked all those years ago by his ex-Potions professor.

Draco clenched his hands on the back of a chair, breathing hard, before he proceeded to cough up a storm. Lucius watched with seemingly dispassion as his son hacked away and smeared blood about his sleeves.

Finally Draco broke off and calmed down, by which time Lucius had gone back to his paperwork and was pointedly ignoring the two men in front of him.

Harry idly watched as Draco essayed to speak twice and failed, and sighed internally.

"Draco, perhaps-"

"What, Potter, what? Must you be present at every meeting I have with my father? Does our Minister," -the sneer Draco directed at his father could rival the ones Harry remembered from his Hogwarts days- "require your presence when he pisses as well?"

Harry waited patiently as the young man broke off to cough again, taking no offense for words that the boy had obviously intended for his father.

Lucius, however, had no such forbearance. "Go home, Draco," he said dismissively, not bothering to look up. "Take the rest of the day off."

A sharp silence, for Draco's coughing had abruptly stopped, as if his throat had been slit, so sudden was the stillness of his face. A trickle of blood ran down his translucent lips.

"Yes, sir. Yes, you cold-hearted bastard," he whispered. Then Draco did the unbelievable and spat on his father's desk, leaning forward to meet Lucius' surprised eyes. Blood and spittle splotched thickly on the smooth parchments, dribbled down his sallow chin.

Harry was stunned.

"You are out of line!" Lucius roared, rising to his feet in fury. His voice was a tightly controlled whiplash, and angry magic swirled and tingled in the room like the ominous eddies in an incoming snowstorm. Harry found the anger in Lucius' eyes gloriously alive, a pulsating quicksilver that danced in his irises like thunder, and he was enthralled by it, excited in a way that he never was when he wasn't stalking a prey.

But Draco laughed, a laugh like broken glass, and the moment was shattered. He tried to laugh again, but the tear in his throat allowed only a bloodied gargling sound, sickening to hear.

Harry came up quietly beside him, and Draco turned to him with something approaching affection in his eyes. "Ah, Saint Potter. About time too." A softly murmured sleep spell, and Draco slumped into his arms.

"Take my son home, Harry," Lucius said, waving his arm wearily.

He nodded as he picked up the frail, limp body as if he was a child. Slughorn hurried in, gave the room one sweeping glance, and went out to prepare Lucius' private Floo- forcing Harry to concede that Lucius did perhaps have an eye for spotting talent, perhaps to make up for his inability to produce one.

"Goodbye, Minister," Harry said softly, just before the doors shut. Lucius didn't hear him, and Harry's last glimpse was of long fingers splayed on the desk and a head bowed disconsolately over the blood smears left by his son.

*