Vita Labyrinthae Similis In Quo Umbrae Vagamus

CHAPTER 6

--Shakespeare--

Nadezhda and Lupin ran into each other in the staff lounge, later. Lupin was ensconced in a shabby armchair by the fire, reading what looked to Nastasya's casual glance like a cheesy romance novel, which he hastily shut as she entered the room. "Hello," he said warmly. "Where've you been?"

"Oh, around and about," she said, trying desperately not to sound as happy as she was. Lupin quirked an eyebrow at her.

"'Going to and fro about the world and walking up and down in it'?" he quoted, regarding her with a steady yellow gaze. She grinned.

"Something like that. I've had lessons to catch up on."

Lupin put down his cheesy romance novel, yawning. "So tell me a story," he said, not looking at her. "You're glowing, Nastasya."

Nadezhda blushed. Was it really that obvious? "I, uh," she said, thinking fast. "I got some good news from home?"

"Honestly," he said. "I'd expect better from a Defense against the Dark Arts professor. Don't you remember that we can smell lies?" He sniffed, to make the point. She gave up.

"Lupin, you can be a real pain sometimes," she told him, without rancor. "If you can smell lies, you probably can also detect the scent of other people on me."

"Mmm," he agreed. "Your hair fairly reeks of him. It's actually not an unpleasant scent. Kind of like pepper and hot resin, and night air."

She blinked. She was very glad they were alone in the staff lounge. "Anything else you'd care to tell me?"

Lupin closed his eyes and leaned back in the chair. "You're rather astonishingly happy, but at the same time you're worried about something. Someone. And you're wearing robes that you hang in a wardrobe with a small sachet of bergamot and lavender. And you use Lampblack 27 ink, and you got some of it on your fingers at some point this morning." He opened his eyes, regarding her mildly. She sat down in a chair facing his.

"Remind me never to underestimate your nose again, Remus," she told him. "You're not going to...."

"To tell on you?" Lupin shook his head. "No, although I honestly do think that if you were going to fall for anyone on the faculty it ought to have been me. I mean, what do I have to do to get you to notice me?" His tone was lazy, but she felt a sudden wave of astonishment.

"Why, Remus, I didn't know you cared," she said, but it wasn't nasty.

"I didn't know I did, until you succumbed to Lothario the Potions Master's charms," he sighed. "Oh well. Maybe you can have a humanizing influence on him. Get him to wash his hair, or something."

She grinned. "He does wash his hair, Remus."

"I don't think I need to hear anything about his personal habits, actually," he said, closing his eyes. "Shall we leave the subject? I suppose I should inquire about his health, in the spirit of professionalism and concern for a colleague."

"He'll be fine," she told him. "He's got a touch of pneumonia, and I'll be taking his classes for the rest of the week, but after that you'll have to deal with him again."

"I see," said Lupin. "Consider me duly forewarned." He sat forward in the chair, reached out for her hand. "Nastasya---I am glad, for you. I hope he makes you happy, because if he doesn't, I will personally disembowel him at the height of the full moon."

Her eyes widened, narrowed again. "I'll take that into consideration," she said mildly. "Thank you, Remus."

He sat back again, regarded the fire, a little smile playing about his lips. "So are you attending the Ball tonight?"

Nadezhda shrugged. "I don't know. I don't remember liking it much, as a student."

"They've got Butterbeer," Lupin cajoled. "Lots and lots of Butterbeer. And this exquisite chocolate mousse...."

"Oh, God, not the one they did for the beginning-of-term feast? That was definitely one of the high points in my existence, was that chocolate mousse." She sighed in sweet memory. "I might have to put in an appearance, in that case. What about you? Are you coming?"

"I told Dumbledore I would," said Lupin. "I think he wants someone sane to help him keep an eye on Trelawney, who's liable to go off into what she calls trances and start predicting doom and destruction in the middle of the dance numbers."

"So she is," said Nadezhda, remembering. "I don't know. I might show up. I might not."

"You've got other priorities," said Lupin lightly.

It wasn't until much later, back in Snape's quarters, reclining on a number of fat cushions in front of an uncharacteristically comfortable fire, that she recalled what else Lupin had said he could smell on her. At the same time you're worried about something....

"Severus?" she asked idly, playing with his hair.

"Mmmm?"

"Do you have the slightest idea what's bothering Draco Malfoy?"

He drew in a sharp breath at the mention of Malfoy's name, but he only coughed briefly, and with much less pain. "No," he said simply. "Why?"

She turned in his arms so she could look at him. "Draco's been strangely polite to me, recently, and I've noticed he wasn't going out of his way to be nasty to Potter, Granger and Weasley even before he got ill. I saw him again today, this morning, and he looked frightened for a moment. That smooth self-satisfied expression he normally uses was gone for a moment, and I thought I could see a real kid in there, behind those silver eyes of his. I asked him if there was something he was worrying about, or something he'd like to talk to me about, and he looked as if he was going to talk—and then that mask was back, and he just looked coolly at me and said that everything was just fine. It isn't. Something's really eating him."

Severus sighed, resting his chin on the top of her head. "That's bizarre," he murmured, his breath stirring her hair. "Young Master Malfoy has never shown me much of a personality at all, let alone a capacity for concern or preoccupation. Perhaps he's a Polyjuice replacement."

Nadezhda sighed. "Poor kid. I didn't think I had it in me, but I'm honestly concerned. If you'd seen his eyes this morning, Severus, you'd understand. And he looks so thin and worn out. I just wish there was something I could do to help."

He pulled her closer. "My love, you are supremely illogical," he informed her, "and, unfortunately, equally compelling. I promise you I will do all in my power to sort out Draco Malfoy, if it will make you happy."

She kissed the sharp angle of his jaw, delicately. "Thank you."

"But not, perhaps, right now."

"You're not making this easy, you know," she said, later, with her hands on her hips. He was lying in the great green-hung bed, his fingers laced behind his head, regarding her lazily through half-lidded eyes. His lashes were darker and thicker than a girl's, she noted absently.

"I see no reason to assist you," he said, in that infuriating, compelling voice that seemed to grab hold of her hindbrain and twist gently. "I mean, my particular interests don't seem to gain by it."

"I promised I'd make an appearance at the Ball," she sighed. "Now give me back my robes before I have to take them by force."

He gave her a self-satisfied grin. "I don't think so."

"Aaargh," she said. "You are evil. I've decided."

"Nadezhda," he told her matter-of-factly, "I've waited for what seems like half a lifetime to have you here alone with me. There were several years when I'd just given up hope of this ever happening. So give me one good reason why I should relinquish one minute of my time with you when it's not absolutely necessary for us to be apart?"

She sighed and came over to the bed and kissed him thoroughly enough to make him go all shivery and wordless. "Because if you don't, I'll be forced to wear your spare robes and say I'm dressing up as you for Halloween."

Snape jumped as if stung. "You wouldn't."

"Try me."

"Nadezhda, you're a cruel, cruel woman."

"There is one way both of us can win this one," she pointed out. "You can come with me to the Ball."

He made a face. She broke out into peals of laughter, and he snaked his arms around her and drew her close. "I don't think you're going anywhere," he told her mildly.

"Grrr. Ten minutes. Just to say hello."

He sighed, released her. "Persistence wins out in this case, Serenskaya, but don't count on it happening again."

She whipped her robes out of his grasp and quickly got dressed, muttering a Hold-Fast Hex at her hair and a Glamorous Glamorie at her face, which made itself up. "I'll be back shortly," she told Snape, who appeared to be sulking. She was astonished at the extent of the change in him. This time the day before, he had been his old self, bitter and cynical and sarcastic and secretly self-denigrating; now, he had become compelling and warm and not a little funny, at least with her. They both had yet to see how he dealt with students. She was sort of looking forward to that. He had suddenly developed a capacity for emotions, or so it seemed. Or perhaps those emotions had finally been allowed to show themselves.

The Great Hall was once again alive with noise and light and magic, the decorations on the walls and ceiling in constant motion, the Weird Sisters playing synth-heavy 80s dance music from the stage set up at one end of the Hall, the students swirling and mingling in a vast crowd in the space normally reserved for the House tables. Nadezhda made her way around the perimeter of the Hall to where the refreshment tables had been set up, and found Lupin already attacking the Legendary Chocolate Mousse with vigor. "You came," he beamed.

"I couldn't resist this," she shouted over the music, making a face. Looking out over the Hall, she noticed the signature black shock of Potter's hair circling with a silvery-blonde swirl of hair she didn't recognize; Ron Weasley had snagged himself a dance with one of the Patil girls, whom Nadezhda could never tell apart (to her secret shame). She remembered her own student days, how she'd disliked this entire ritual—it wasn't that she couldn't get a date, it was that the only boy she'd wanted to go with wouldn't have dreamed of asking her—and was obscurely glad that she was a teacher now, and had put all this behind her. Lupin put a friendly hand on her shoulder.

"Makes you feel old, doesn't it?"

"Rather. Let's go sit down and watch the magical wonder of adolescent social interaction."

Lupin laughed. "As you wish."

Harry, in his hastily-thrown-together Falmouth Falcons costume, couldn't stop staring at Hermione, who was being the Beauxbatons Triwizard Championship contestant, Fleur Delacour. She had done something to her hair, made it sleek and shiny and behaved so that if fell in long ripples down her back, but the astonishing thing was the color. It was the color of veela hair, so blonde it was almost silver, shimmering with a kind of pearlescence. She was wearing a long silvery dress that didn't hide much, despite the fact that it covered most of her body. "Don't start to sing," he implored her. "You look too much like a veela. It'd scare the crap out of me."

Hermione grinned, and suddenly the icy mask was gone, and she was just Hermione; but Hermione in a long silver gown and with hair the color of....Harry swallowed....a Malfoy. It was odd that he'd never made a connection between the veela and the Malfoy family. He'd be willing to bet they shared ancestry.

"What is it?" she asked. Some of what he'd been thinking must have showed on his face. He smiled, thinking only of how lovely she was, and shrugged.

"Just thinking," he said. The song came to an end. "You want to go get a drink?"

Together they made their way through the crowd to the buffet tables, and noticed Professors Lupin and Serenskaya sitting down and watching the ball, and waved to them. Harry poured himself and Hermione tall glasses of Butterbeer, and they leaned against the wall and toasted each other, flushed with exertion and excitement.

A group of Slytherins was engaged in conversation on the other side of the hall. Harry and Hermione watched them for a few minutes before realizing that Draco Malfoy was among them; he wasn't doing his trademark life-and-soul-of-the-party bit. In fact it looked like he was arguing with Pansy Parkinson, and that she was losing.

Hermione elbowed him. "Look, d'you suppose he's finally told her to sod off and get eaten by a dragon?" She indicated Pansy's agitation. Harry grinned.

"No, he's probably telling her she's not pureblood enough to go out with him and his daddy's told him to dump her."

They watched, fascinated, as Pansy grew more and more desperate, making sweeping gestures that drew the attention of half the Hall. Draco looked as if he had a killer headache; he was very white, and his features were set as he fended off her arguments with little impatient waves of a hand. He was wearing black velvet dress robes, which made him seem even paler than he was, and their wide sleeves gave him the air of a professor. A younger, blonder Snape, thought Harry, and just as quickly dismissed the thought.

Malfoy snapped something final at Pansy, and pointed into the crowd of Slytherins. She burst into tears and flounced away from him, approaching her Housemates, who circled round to envelop her, shooting what looked like nasty looks at Malfoy. Abruptly Malfoy turned and hurried out of the Hall.

Harry swallowed the last of his drink, and stood up. "You're not....?" began Hermione.

"Herm, I'm sorry. I can't resist. My curiosity, you know, it's been biting me all day. Maybe I can find out why he was blubbering in the woods this afternoon."

"I'll come with you," she said decisively. He thought about telling her not to, decided against it; the look in her eyes brooked no refusals. Together, they left the Great Hall, hurrying down the staircase after Malfoy.

The Gryffindor common room was a warm and pleasant environment; it was situated high in a tower. The Slytherins, however, lived in a dungeon, and Hermione wrinkled her nose at the thought of people actually living down here. They had Potions down in the dungeons, of course, and Snape lived around here somewhere, but the idea of students spending their free time down here did not appeal to her.

"Where do you think he went?"

"Probably just their common room," said Harry. "He looked really cheesed off about something."

Hermione pulled out her wand and muttered something Harry didn't catch. "He went that way," she told him in a moment, pointing left down a T-junction in the corridor." He gave her an astounded look. "Tracing Charm," she said briefly. "I'll explain later."

They followed Hermione's wand all the way to the dungeon-level men's room. Frowning at each other, they paused outside the door, and heard unmistakeable sounds. Harry pushed open the door, and they slipped inside.

Draco was huddled in the last stall, being extremely, violently sick. Hermione's eyes widened, and she let out a small sound of horrified surprise. Harry was astonished at the lack of rancor with which he regarded the hunched form of Malfoy. Part of him was chuckling in glee at the Slytherin's misery, but the same part that had urged him to pass on, this afternoon in the woods, was feeling rather sorry for the little git. He winced, watching.

Draco groaned, not turning his head to see who had come to laugh at him. "Go away," he gasped.

"Draco?" Hermione asked, more softly than Harry had ever heard her pronounce that name. "Draco, are you all right?"

He gulped, fighting for some semblance of control. "What does it look like?" he snarled. "Piss off, Granger..... I don't need...your pity...." He bent over again and was convulsed by the agonized retching that sounded as if it was tearing him apart.

"Harry?" She threw him a glance.

"I'm going to get Madame Pomfrey," he said. Draco choked, fighting the spasms.

"No," he hissed, "please...just go away, Potter."

"Draco, you need help," said Hermione, who had knelt down beside him and was holding his head as he retched. He couldn't speak for quite a long time. When he did manage to gain enough control to gasp out a few words, they could hear the deadly exhaustion in his voice.

"Get....Snape," he managed. "He'll understand."

Harry and Hermione looked at each other. Snape was still sick. What about....

"I'll be right back," said Harry, and set off back to the Great Hall at a run. Hermione, left alone with Draco, found herself gently rubbing his back, murmuring calming words to him exactly as she'd done for Ron when he'd been sick the previous year. Funny how little she cared, right now, about the thousand epithets he would fling at her as soon as he was finished throwing up; funny, too, how little it mattered that this was Malfoy, and the enemy. Where were his Slytherins? she wondered. Pansy Parkinson didn't strike her as the helpful type in a crisis, even if Draco hadn't so obviously dismissed her, and she knew Vince Crabbe and Greg Goyle wouldn't bother to try and help their leader if it didn't involve beating someone up. It suddenly occurred to her that Malfoy didn't really have many friends at all.

Not that that was surprising, given his personality.

It seemed as if the spasms were easing a bit. Hermione pulled out a handkerchief from her sleeve and wiped away the sweat and tears from Malfoy's face. He hung over the toilet, his eyes closed, breathing in long shuddering gasps.

"Draco," she murmured. "What happened? What made you so sick?"

He didn't answer straight away, still trying to get his breath back. "Don't know," he gasped. "Ate something funny."

She didn't know why, but she had a very strong feeling that he was lying.

Nadezhda looked up as Harry Potter, in his grey-and-white Falcons costume, hurried up to her. "Professor Serenskaya?"

"What is it, Harry?" He looked rather white.

"Draco Malfoy. He's sick. He didn't want me to get Madame Pomfrey, but Professor Snape's still not well, and you're his substitute..." He trailed off. Nadezhda got up quickly, downing her Butterbeer.

"Take me to him," she said. He led her hurriedly down through the arteries of the castle to the lowest level, the same level where Snape lived, and she wondered if it wouldn't be better just to go and wake up Snape and have him deal with Malfoy. He had more experience of him. But a moment later Potter had pushed open the door to the bathroom, and the sight of the half-conscious and greenish-white Draco Malfoy had made her blood temperature suddenly drop about five degrees.

"Holy fucking God," she said in a low horrified voice, and knelt down beside him. Hermione Granger was holding his head, and she exchanged glances with Nadezhda. "What happened?"

"I don't know," said Hermione. "We saw him arguing with Pansy Parkinson, and it looked like he'd just won the argument, and then he suddenly ran out of the hall." Potter, behind her, drew her away a few steps.

"We saw him earlier in the woods," he whispered in her ear. "He didn't notice us. He was crying, Professor. Really crying." She felt her eyes widen in shock. She had never even considered Malfoy capable of tears.

"How long has he been vomiting?"

"I don't know exactly. Maybe twenty minutes?" said Granger. As if to lend emphasis to the point, Draco's slender body was suddenly convulsed with retching again. The mask Nadezhda was so used to was utterly gone, and she was seeing the underlying teenager; and the underlying teenager was apparently human. It gave her a strange feeling of hope.

Draco seemed to have finished, for the time being. He desperately needed some sort of medical attention. "You said he refused to be taken to Madame Pomfrey?"

Draco roused a little, his eyes unfocused. "No...." he gasped. "Not there."

"He said we should get Professor Snape. That he'd understand."

"Then I suppose I should take him to Professor Snape," said Nadezhda, simply, and pulled out her wand. She conjured up a stretcher for Malfoy. "I think I can handle it from here," she told Potter and Granger. "You acted quickly and correctly. I'm impressed with your fast thinking...and with your compassion."

Miss Granger looked as if she was about to cry.

"Off you go," said Nadezhda with heartiness she didn't feel. "Go on back to the Ball. You're missing all the fun."

Potter nodded, put his arm around Granger, and left the bathroom. Nadezhda was left with the exhausted Draco Malfoy, and a whole bunch of questions.

She lifted him onto the stretcher with a spell, trying to make it as smooth and easy a movement as possible considering that he was already feeling about as sick as a human being could possibly feel, and floated him down the corridor to Snape's quarters, wondering what the hell was really going on. Snape answered the door in his dressing gown, clearly expecting her to be alone. She was impressed with the speed at which his professionalism snapped back into place.

"What happened?" he demanded, taking Draco's pulse, feeling his forehead. Nadezhda told him as much as she knew, including the glimpses of vulnerability he'd been showing her for a few days. Snape's face grew more and more grim as he listened, and when she'd finished he turned to his desk and flicked through a calendar perched on its edge.

"Oh, no," he said, softly. "Oh, no."

"What?"

"Yesterday was Draco's sixteenth birthday," he muttered. "Sixteen is the age at which you become eligible to enter the Death Eaters."

Nadezhda rolled up the boy's left sleeve, exposing a forearm as white and unscarred as new snow. "So...."

"I don't know exactly what's going on," said Snape, "but it's got something to do with Lucius Malfoy." He spat out the name like a beetle found in a windfall apple. "Lucius Malfoy's doing this to his son."

"What can I do?" she asked quietly.

"Go and brew the strongest Vitaris you can make, and bring me the vials of asphodel and wormwood." He was rummaging through drawers, looking for ingredients. Draco Malfoy lay white and still on the stretcher that still hovered in midair. She found she didn't want to look at that lovely face under its veil of silver hair. She didn't want to think about what she was doing. She merely did it.

Some hours later, they'd managed to revive Draco to the point at which he could tell them what was going on. Her Vitaris Tincture had more or less reversed the deadly exhaustion he was struggling with, and Snape had done something to him that controlled some of the nausea. Nevertheless it was a Draco Malfoy clearly not feeling his best that lay on Snape's office couch and regarded them with dilated grey eyes as they asked him questions.

"Malfoy," she said, "what the hell happened to you?"

The eyes flicked to Snape, back to her. "I...it's nothing. I probably just ate something weird."

She snorted. "Did you know your eyes go all wide when you lie, Malfoy? Give."

She was amazed to see a weak smile tug at his porcelain mouth. "Professor Serenskaya, it's not that simple. I don't think you'd believe me. Either of you." He turned his head on the pillows to face Snape, who was regarding him calmly with his chin resting on his hand.

Snape raised an eyebrow. "Draco," he said, and Nadezhda found it in herself to be surprised at his use of the boy's given name, "I went to school with Lucius Malfoy. I don't think you can tell me anything about him that I'd have difficulty believing."

Draco's eyes went suddenly silver and reflective, like mirrors. "I didn't say this had anything to do with my father."

"You didn't have to," retorted Snape. "As I said, I've had experience with him. I remember some of the things he did to me. "

Nadezhda glanced at him, but his pale features were quite calm. Draco wasn't looking at them; he was staring thoughtfully at the wall as if making an important decision.

"Professor," he began, and looked at her. "I...it's not something I'd..."

"Professor Serenskaya is completely trustworthy," said Snape. His silky voice brooked no defiance. Malfoy merely nodded, closing those astonishing eyes.

"Very well," he said, quietly. "I knew my father was a Death Eater. I've known for a long time now. I was raised with Voldemort's name always on the edge of hearing, and I remember when I was very young how I'd cling to my father and beg him not to go off to his 'meetings,' and the way he looked at me and my mother as he left. I think I ignored it, or rationalized it, as much as I could. When I left for Hogwarts, and he found out I'd be in Harry Potter's year, he suddenly started paying me a great deal of, uh, attention."

Nadezhda looked at Snape. Both of them had stared when they'd loosened Draco's high-collared robes and seen the criscrossing scars of old beatings, some of them so old they'd begun to stretch into long pale contrails on the translucent skin of his back and chest. The skin was heavily ridged with scar tissue. Nadezhda had suddenly understood why he always wore such thick, elegant, designer robes.

"He told me that it was vitally important that I find out as much as possible about the Potter boy. You understand that at this point I knew only what he'd taught me, that the Death Eaters were in the right and very misunderstood and everyone who stood against them...us... was evil and bigoted. He hadn't explained much about the world to me, and because my tutors had been on his payroll, I had learned only what he deemed it suitable for me to learn. I came to Hogwarts looking for Harry Potter, and prepared to make his life a living hell until I found out his weak points and his capabilities. I fancy I was rather good at it. Until about two weeks ago."

Draco's face was so pale it was almost grey, his colorless hair falling into his eyes like silver rain. Nadezhda found herself wondering exactly what it had been like being Lucius Malfoy's son and heir. Snape's haunted eyes blinked again in the back of her skull. He was...eating her.

"My friends...or acquaintances, or lackeys, or whatever you want to call them....Crabbe and Goyle, aren't sick. They're off with Voldemort right now. Going through the initiation rites, you know; first they burn the Mark into your flesh, and then they start picking through your skull and playing with bits of your mind until there's not much left except for hunger and destruction. I'd bet that Vince and Greg are quite happy right now, actually. There's this one curse they do on you that makes you blissful and quiet and thick and you'd do anything just to be allowed to sit there and stare at the wall for hours. I remember that one very clearly."

"The Indica curse," muttered Snape. Nadezhda glanced at him and saw he was rubbing his forehead with his fingertips as if trying to assuage a headache.

"Is that its name?" Draco looked mildly interested. "Anyway, they turned sixteen several days before I did, and they disappeared to wherever their daddies called them to prepare for the Death Eater initiation. I was happy for them. I thought it was exciting." The bitterness in his voice rivalled that of Snape. I was his creature...

"Vince Crabbe carelessly left his trunk unlocked. I was having trouble sleeping about three, four days ago, the day I met you outside in the afternoon, Professor..." he looked at Nadezhda...."and I noticed this silvery light was flooding out of his trunk. I got up and went over to have a look. He'd got a Pensieve in there."

Draco swallowed convulsively, sweat beading his forehead. Nadezhda sighed and brought him a basin from the washstand, just in time for him to be thoroughly sick once more. "I'm sorry," he gasped, when he had breath. "You must be jolly tired of this by now."

Nadezhda laughed a little. "I've got incredible patience," she told him. "It's all right, Draco. None of this is your fault."

"I wish I could believe that," he sighed, subsiding back on the pillows. Nadezhda stole a glance at Snape, who now looked as if he had a migraine. "Anyway, obviously, I looked in the Pensieve. It showed Vince's father's thoughts. Presumably he'd given the thing to his son so that he knew what to expect when called upon to serve Voldemort, or to give him moral support, or something. I saw...." he looked about to be sick again, but controlled it...."things I shouldn't have. There was a party at my father's manor, years ago, before I can remember. I recognized people there; there was Patricia Parkinson, Pansy's horrible mother, and Crabbe and Goyle the elder, who looked like they were doing for my dad what their kids are doing for me. Being the muscle. Neither of them ever had much brain." Nadezhda let out a breath she hadn't known she was holding; that last comment had been so inimicably Malfoy that she felt relieved in its familiarity. This really is Malfoy we're listening to. Malfoy....no, Draco, who has a story to tell which is not an easy thing to speak.

"I saw Lucius...my father....leading a Muggle girl by the hand, back into an unused room. I think it's the room he uses as his study now. I was seeing all this through Crabbe's father's memories, and there's a gap between when he led the girl into the room and when he came out again. He was....covered in blood." Draco's voice had thickened, and his eyes were closed. "His robes were wrinkled and torn, and he was covered in blood. He had this euphoric look on his face, as if he'd just done something really enjoyable. Something like win the Quidditch cup. It was that kind of triumph I saw on his face. He swept past Crabbe-the-elder and said something like "clean up the mess," and the next thing I saw was Crabbe's father walking into the room and finding the remains of the Muggle girl on the bed. On and around the bed. It looked as if she'd been ripped apart by a wild animal. Like she'd been..."

"Eaten," finished Snape. "I know."

"Were you there?" asked Draco, and now he sounded very young.

"Yes," Snape said, and perhaps it was only in Nadezhda's ears, but it sounded as if he was struggling with tears. His voice cleared a bit as he added "I saw it too."

"Then you know," said Draco.

"I know. It's not something I'm proud of seeing, either," Snape said, not looking at either of them. Draco's glacial eyes seemed to spark briefly.

"You saw it, and you didn't do anything?" he demanded.

Snape raised his head, met the boy's eyes with his own. "You think I liked knowing that? You think I've been happy for the past fourteen years? Every time I start to dream I see that room, the look on her face as your father bit her face off. I see her screaming silently. I see myself retreating behind the door and running away into the night." His voice dripped self-loathing like acid. Even Draco, gone as he was with pain and exhaustion, heard it.

"I'm sorry," he muttered. "I didn't know you'd been exposed to my father's less lovable characteristics."

"Do you mean he did it again?" Snape demanded, looking even sicker than Draco.

"Oh, yes," said the boy. Nadezhda knew suddenly that neither of them were paying any attention to her. She had ceased to exist. "Yes, he did it again. Most of the middle of Crabbe's Pensieve is taken up with cleaning up after my father's little indiscretions. He got rather good at scrubbing little shreds of dried flesh off the floor."

Snape held Draco's gaze. "You hadn't known any of this?"

"No. I only knew that Daddy was a Death Eater....like other kids know Daddy is a doctor, or a banker, or a lawyer....and that I was supposed to be just like him when I grew up."

"You knew what the Death Eaters did?" spat Snape, but Nadezhda knew the vitriol was for himself. So did Draco, judging by the look in those mercury eyes.

"I had been taught that they supported Our Dark Lord against the evil machinations of the Light's Ministry. That's about it. I believed it for almost sixteen years, too."

"So you saw the Pensieve, and what it contained," broke in Nadezhda. "What then?"

Draco almost looked grateful for the interruption. "I didn't believe it at first. None of it. Then after a night or so of studying the history of the Death Eaters in the library I remembered that a Pensieve does not lie. It can't lie. What I had seen was the truth of my father and his intentions. And I was almost sixteen." He breathed deeply, painfully, as if something was working its way into his lungs. "Father called for me the next night. Last night. He told me I was ready to become a Death Eater. I stalled; I said I wasn't ready, that I needed some time to prepare myself for so great an honor. I don't think he bought it, but he let me have twenty-four hours. I panicked. I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, but after looking into Crabbe's Pensieve, I knew damn well I didn't want to follow in Daddy's footsteps." He closed his eyes for a long moment. "And when he spoke to me again, inside my own head, it was just before the Ball tonight. He asked me if I was ready. I told him no; I would never be ready to become a sick rapist cannibal who kills for no good reason and destroys the very few good things there are left in this world. I told him I'd die sooner than join his brethren. He laughed, and said, very well then, Draco my waste of seed, you shall have your wish."

"It's the simulacrum mortus curse, isn't it," Snape said simply. She threw a glance at him and found his thin face had gone slack with horror.

"Something like that. He's got his fist in my body and he's closing it." Draco lay back, closed his eyes. "I don't think I've got much time."

"He's killing you?" Nadezhda demanded.

"By remote control," Snape clarified, his long fingers white as they pressed against his forehead. "He's got a simulacrum---a model---of Draco somewhere and he's killing it. Much like the Haitian voodoo magic. It's a very old and very powerful curse."

"But...his son...."

"I am no longer his son," said Draco sickly. "I am merely another impediment in his way. If he could be bothered to get to Hogwarts he'd put Avada Kedavra on me himself. He's a little too lazy for that."

"And you're letting him?"

Draco opened his eyes and stared at her. "Professor....I haven't got much of a choice."

She turned to Snape, vibrating with fury. "Severus, is there no way to stop it? Not a hope?"

"The only way to end the simulacrum mortus is with a death," said Snape, and the grief was evident in his tone. "Either Draco dies, or his father does."

"Don't worry, Professor," said Draco, mildly, once more regarding the insides of his eyelids. "You won't be implicated."

She turned to him, took him by the shoulders. "You think I care about that?" she spat. "You stupid child, I am trying to save your life. For some reason I've become convinced that you're worthwhile. Don't you dare give up on me, Malfoy. Don't you dare."

Draco's silver eyes slid open, found hers, with some surprise. Snape grabbed her arm.

"Nadezhda," he hissed. "A word, if you please."

He drew her into the adjoining storage room, shut the door. She was still hot with helpless anger. "What?"

"Nadezhda....there's nothing we can do. Don't make the boy's last hours harder than they have to be. Don't let him think there's hope."

"But—"

"No," he said, and he was once again the old imperious icy Snape who had terrorized her in her early years at Hogwarts. She saw the threat of tears glimmering in his eyes, and knew how much it was hurting him to say these things.

"What are we to do?" she asked.

"I'd suggest we go to Dumbledore," said Snape miserably, "but Draco wouldn't want anyone to know of this. Of his shame."

"There's no shame in it," she spat."It's not his fault he's the son of a monster. Besides, doesn't Dumbledore already know about Lucius and his activities?"

"From me, yes." Severus's face was set and very white in the dim room. "But Malfoy doesn't need to know that, either. He trusts me. He doesn't need to know what I was."

"You think he'd assume you're still with them?"

"What else would he think? Nadezhda, the boy's out of his head with fever and pain. There's nothing we can do but try and make him comfortable as best we can."

She let out a dry, hacking sob, despite her attempts to control herself. It seemed that the tears were never very far away, these days. Severus took her in his arms, crushed her against him, and she clung to him as if she could never let go. She felt him shuddering against her, and knew she was not the only one fighting down grief.

"We should go back to him," she said, and the air was sharp and crackling with sadness, all around them.

"Yes," said Snape evenly, and took her hand, and led her back into the office. Draco lay as he had before, propped up on pillows on the couch, covered with Severus's winter cloak for a blanket. He seemed to have slipped back into sleep. Nadezhda sat down beside him and took his burning hand in hers, wishing against every possible eventuality that there was some way to fix this. She had thought the world was opening itself up to her and her wants and desires, with her unexpected confession to Severus and his even more unexpected response; now, as always before, she saw that the world didn't care two figs about her. That it would quite happily see her as miserable as possible. That nothing she wanted could ever possibly matter.

Snape's hand fell on her shoulder, and she covered it with hers. "I'm sorry, Nadezhda," he said.

"So am I," she murmured. "So am I."