The Mystery Wife

The Headmaster, as it turned out, really did have an awfully comfortable bed. Wide, soft, down-filled, with a black crushed velvet comforter and impossibly soft sheets in a fine cotton weave.

Shame Draco couldn't sleep in it.

He tossed, he turned, he punched the soft pillows. He climbed out of the cocoon of the comforter and tried to sleep on top of it for an hour or so. Finally he gave up the ghost for a while and headed downstairs to the livingroom, where he found Sevanna still awake and reading, as promised.

"Didn't you take the Sleeping Draught I laid out by the bed?" she frowned up at him. "You should take it now; it's nearly midnight."

"It'd be fine for going to sleep, but I don't like the idea of being kept asleep," Draco admitted wryly. "If something actually did happen that made your staying up necessary, I couldn't help-- I'd never even hear it." He threw himself into the nearest chair. "Any letters back, yet?"

"Two," she smiled. "Pansy and Millicent. I did not read them, as I had no wish to invade your privacy. But I will confess to curiosity with regard to their contents."

Merlin, did the woman ever relax? She was permanently starched, from her high, buttoned collars to her impossibly perfect grammar.

And, fuck, she was hot when she was being didactic...

Draco firmly squelched that thought as Sevanna handed over the unopened letters, and he tore them open, curious himself.

Dear Draco, Pansy's began,

If you're in, I'm in. Merlin help us, I haven't studied in a month, and that bitch Granger is going to hand me my head. Fuck.

Anyway, I'll see you tomorrow. I've missed you. Where the hell have you been?

Pansy

Draco's lips quirked. "Pansy's in."

Sevanna's eyes lit with satisfaction, and she leaned back in her chair like a contented cat. "And Millicent?" she asked.

Draco opened the second letter.

Well, crap, it read. Now I'm dithering. I wasn't likely to pass even if I'd studied. I'm probably wasting everyone's time, but if it'll do Slytherin any good, I'll show up.

Millicent

"Millicent's also in," he said with a smirk. "If I tell her it'll do any good. She says she wasn't likely to pass even if she'd studied." He tapped the letter pensively. "I wonder, if I could get her here as fast as possible... there's got to be something I can help her pass. Even one NEWT would be something."

"We could Floo her up here," she murmured, "and explain me away as Severus Snape's cousin, I suppose. I could work with her tonight on... Care of Magical Creatures, it was her best subject. You should be getting some sleep. But I suppose we could offer everyone a cram session tonight, on the condition that my presence here is kept a secret."

Draco looked at her uncertainly. "Are you sure? About letting them see you, even as Sevanna Prince? They know you. They know your teaching style. You'd have to be so bloody careful... And we'd definitely have to go down to the dormitory; we'd never be able to explain your being in here."

"Not enough room for everyone to sleep here anyway, and even an hour's sleep under the Sleeping Draught would be enough to make sure you were all well rested," Sevanna murmured. "We should take this down to the Slytherin dorms, if any of the others are up for coming." She set aside her book, rose and started to pace. "Oh, I have it. It's brilliant. It would reaffirm my death in their minds. I could pose as my own ghost, and run the cram session as myself. A bit of Polyjuice, half-materialization... difficult to sustain, but it could be done..."

Draco stared at her as she paced back and forth. "Bloody hell, that is brilliant," he breathed. He was having that stupid urge to grab her and kiss her again. It was maddening. He'd get hexed.

Well, at least he was getting the urge to kiss her in response to her intelligence. That practically qualified as a sign of maturity.

"You're going to need to talk to the Bloody Baron," he said suddenly, bolting upright. "He'll know you're not really a ghost. All the ghosts will know. But if he agrees to it... they're all too afraid of him to tell anyone, even Peeves."

"Just so," she nodded. And without another word she breezed through the door and into the office. Draco followed her curiously.

"Baron," she said to one of the portraits, "a word if you please."

The Bloody Baron's enormous, hideously gory ghost floated out of the portrait above the fireplace. In his portrait, he was far handsomer, finely dressed in deep green robes, thick with silver embroidery.

"What is it, Severus?"

"I need to ask for a favor."

"What is it you need?"

Draco's jaw dropped. He hadn't known the Bloody Baron could talk, much less that he did.

"The Slytherins, as you know, have left the school. All of them."

"I am well aware of it, yes," the ghost said mournfully.

"I want to bring the graduating class back for the NEWTs, which are starting tomorrow. We have this one night to get them up to speed in a cramming session. I plan to teach them and watch over them by posing as the ghost of Severus Snape."

The Bloody Baron smiled. Actually fucking smiled.

"And you wish the ghosts of Hogwarts to maintain the illusion," he said.

"I will settle for none of you giving me away," said Sevanna. "You are the only ones who could."

"Very well, I will see to it," the Baron nodded. "They will tow the line, and your secret will be safe with us. Guard our Slytherins well, as you always have."

"Thank you, Baron," Sevanna smiled. "I am in your debt."

"You are more than welcome. Fair fortune tomorrow, young Draco," said the ghost, addressing the boy directly.

"Thank you, sir," Draco managed to reply. He'd been utterly terrified of this ghost as a First Year, and a bit of that still lingered. "I'll help the others as much as I can."

"Good lad," said the ghost, nodding politely and disappearing through the nearest wall.

Sevanna turned to Draco, her eyes gleaming. "How would you like to firecall your old friends?" she asked. "We haven't time for owls; every hour matters now."

Draco grinned at her, rather cheekily, and snatched the jar of Floo powder down from the mantle for an answer.

"I can use this fireplace, can't I, Headmaster? Come back when you feel a little more like yourself."

Sevanna nodded and headed back to her living quarters, and her lab. Draco turned to the fireplace and tossed in a bit of powder.

"The Parkinsons," he said, and he got the great hall of Pansy's estate.

Not twenty minutes later, he'd managed to talk Pansy, Millicent, Theodore Nott, Blaise Zabini, Daphne Greengrass and Marcus Vaisey into coming over for an all-night cramming session and Slytherin Class of 1998 reunion.

They stepped through one at a time, with trunks and books in tow (Pansy had brought along three valises, all in a matching shade of bubblegum pink). And Draco realized just how much he'd missed them. Pansy's vanity and cattiness, Millicent's anger management issues, Blaise's arrogance, Theo's weediness, Daphne's twitchy insanity, even Marcus' backbiting. He'd actually missed it.

"I can't imagine how they've endured having no Slytherins here," he drawled with a fondly amused smirk, surveying their... troops, he supposed. They were all that was left of Slytherin's Seventh Year. The rest were in Azkaban or dead. We few, we happy few... "Poor deprived bastards."

There were smirks all around, except from Millicent, who looked nervous.

"You really think we can do this in one night?" she asked.

"Yes," Draco said firmly. "We have help that nobody else will."

Apparently taking that for his cue (and it had been), Professor Snape materialized from the shadows. Or, rather, half-materialized.

Pansy screamed and burst into tears, which set the other girls off, Blaise looked as though he were seriously considering wetting himself, and Theo and Marcus looked horrified.

It was really quite satisfying, in a macabre way.

"Oh, Professor!" Millicent wailed. "I'd hoped... oh, I'm so sorry!"

"Foolish girl, stop crying at once," he snapped, sounding enough like his old, bastard self that he startled her into compliance. "You waste valuable study time, and we have none to lose."

"I'd wondered what we were doing in the Headmaster's office," Blaise murmured. "Well done, Malfoy."

Draco-- who'd had precious little to do with it, in his opinion-- smirked a bit wanly.

"They've all been barred from the Headmaster's office, ever since... since the battle. When I arrived, I was told I was wanted up here. They must be going barmy out there, wondering what the hell is going on." His smirk steadied. "Good. Let them."

"Ladies, gentlemen," said the Ghost of Potions Classes Past, "I suggest we save questions and comments for later, move to the Slytherin dormitories, order up food and coffee from the house elves, and start on what is sure to be the most grueling cramming session of your lives."

"Merlin, he hasn't changed," Daphne murmured.

"Yes, he has," Snape muttered with a mordant twist of the lips. "But that is neither here nor there. I have come back for you, so. Let's not waste this opportunity."

Millicent burst into tears again. "Thank you, sir," she said in a small voice. Snape looked rather hellishly awkward and guilty for a moment, before he settled on just the perfect words.

"You're welcome."