The Old Spells

"There's a shadow just behind me
Shrouding every step I take
Making every promise empty
Pointing every finger at me."

~Tool, Sober

Chapter 2:

The Four-Point Spell

West - knowledge, power

It was excruciatingly difficult work, and something that Draco needed at that moment, even more than he needed Harry. The dungeons were steeped in darkness beyond the halo-glow of his cauldron fire. Draco listened absently to the drip-drip of water somewhere in the depths of the room, and stirred the slowly forming potion with wide, precise circles. The rod left yellow tracers spiraling through the orangey liquid. Draco pinched a tiny sprig of hellebore in the fingers of his right hand, held it above the cauldron, and waited.

Drip.

Quite suddenly, the liquid reddened, and golden steam poured over the lip of the cauldron, slithering down the sides. When it reached the flames beneath, the fire flared a piercing blue, flashing up the sides with an icy huff. The instant Draco felt the chill on his wrists, he let the sprig fall. It touched the liquid - was swallowed up... and purple tendrils began to wind from the depths like fog. Within seconds, the potion was a glassy violet. The fire snuffed out on its own, leaving the room cold and silent.

Draco smiled.

He crossed to the next desk over and lifted the long glass flask carefully, then returned to his cauldron with it. He dipped into the brew with a clean ladle, careful not to stir the liquid more than necessary, and began to fill the flask. The room's shadows blanketed. He could hear rain hissing down outside, pounding to the earth just above his head. Inside, the water trickled faintly along the walls, and the air was the still musk of caverns.

Finally the cauldron was empty. Draco capped the flask and flicked his wand at the torches by the door. They winked out, and the potion inside the flask beamed eerie lavender light across the floor like a beacon. Draco left the room in cold gloom, silently traversing the hall to the next iron-reinforced door. A single knock, and the door swung open on well-greased hinges.

"Come in, Mr Malfoy."

Draco entered Snape's office and shut the door behind him with a wave of his hand. The professor sat at his desk, perusing a stack of parchment with complex lists and figures squiggled over the pages. The man looked up as the door shut, and one dark eyebrow lifted. "Well?"

Draco set the flask down delicately on Snape's desk. The older man's eyes caught his for a moment, and then a spindly hand reached forward and lifted the flask by its neck. Glittering black eyes focused on the liquid under the torchlight.

Snape said nothing, only turned the flask this way and that. Swirled it once, clockwise, and studied the rippling colour. Uncorked it with practiced ease and sniffed. Nodded. Snape's wand appeared in his hand and he waved it over the concoction several times, muttering unintelligible words. The potion gave off a tiny puff of blue steam and subsided. At last, the professor dipped one finger into the mixture and pulled it out, noting the swift evaporation across his fingertip.

"Very good, Mr Malfoy," he said quietly.

Draco did not bother containing his smile. It felt good to let the euphoria take hold at last; it had been so long. Snape sat back, setting the flask with its new contents carefully on one of the nearby shelves. It rested there beside the other potions as if it belonged there.

"My supply of hellebore?"

Draco lifted his chin. "Three quarters full. I only used the required three sprigs."

Snape looked at him keenly. "And your cauldron?"

"The nature of the potion is such that further cleaning was unnecessary."

A tiny smirk appeared on the professor's mouth. "Excellent, Draco. Top marks."

"Thank you, sir."

But Snape did not dismiss him. He merely studied Draco in the firelight, and the shadows flicked across the man's severe features like nymphs. "Sit down."

Draco stood for a moment longer, contemplating not the words, but the tone. Heavier than before. The weight of something else lay behind it. Snape's gaze did not waver, and Draco knew how much information was being gleaned simply from his hesitation. He stepped toward the desk and sat down in the chair across from the other man.

Snape's smirk had vanished. "Do you have any concerns about the required class work?"

Draco shook his head calmly. "Not at this time, Professor."

"Perhaps your House, then. Some difficulty I may alleviate." It was spoken deliberately, each word given its due.

Draco met Snape's gaze squarely, embracing the twinge in his gut for the warning it was: Snape's unearthly awareness had not been at rest this last week, and Draco had to tread very carefully, speak with caution, in order to avoid the snare that might be waiting in amongst these questions. "Everything is fine in the dorms. And with my housemates."

Snape lifted his head slowly, hooding his eyes. "I have had a recent visit from Miss Bulstrode, Draco. She would insinuate otherwise."

Draco glanced to the right, as if thinking. But there was no room for that sort of introspection, not with Snape sitting right across from him, teasing his secrets free. "I've no idea what Mil's problem might be. She's said nothing to me."

His professor's hands twitched where they lay linked on his desktop. There was a lengthy silence. "Mr Malfoy, I pride myself on the intelligence of Slytherin House. The... commonalities between its students, if you will."

He paused, and Draco waited, not knowing what to say, not knowing if he should say anything at all. He forced himself not to look away from Snape, but it was hard. The man suddenly looked impossibly similar to his father in the yellowy light of the room, face half in darkness. At last Snape spoke again.

"If there is something you would like to tell me, Draco, I must insist that you do so now. We... no longer have the luxury of time, as it were."

Draco couldn't help it: he swallowed sharply. Snape's eyes were deep, the eyes of a Legilimens. It would be very important not to lie to him. And quite suddenly, Draco realised the true trap, the one that had nothing to do with Snape himself, and had been lying in wait for Draco all year. Perhaps even longer.

He had no idea how much Severus Snape knew.

"Time, sir?" he hedged in a soft voice. Snape's gaze sharpened on him.

"You move," the professor said, "as if you are aware of the press of moments, Draco. Even seconds. If one were to guess, one might suggest you are waiting for something to happen."

Draco could not feel the slick, oily presence of Legilimency in his thoughts, but there was no way to tell how skilled Snape was. If the man already knew about what was approaching, Draco could not determine what his motives for these questions were.

Snape leaned closer, and there was a faint pall over his features that did not denote cunning. It was--Draco blinked, but Snape was speaking. "I believe you have heard from your father."

He knew. Draco stared as blankly as possible at his professor. The man knew about the Death Eaters; he must. He knew they were coming. He might even know when. And he knew that Draco knew.

It went through Draco's mind with the speed of a flying curse: Was he trying to feel him out? And for whom? For Voldemort, or for... And then the thought was there, with equal strength, somehow, even though Draco had been so sure an instant ago where Snape's loyalties truly lay.

For Dumbledore?

Draco floundered in his own mind, trying to find some edge to grip onto, to pull himself free of the mire. "I hear from my father every month," he managed at last. "We're to visit the Continent this summer, or so he tells me."

Snape's eyes narrowed. His hand very nearly reached out, as if to grasp Draco's. "That is not what he has been writing to you about, Draco."

Gods. Snape knew everything. He had to, and the only place he could be getting that information was from Voldemort himself. Along with the rest of the Death Eaters. It should have felt good, and perhaps a few months ago, it would have. To know that Snape knew. That Snape would listen to his concerns, and understand. He'd been so sure earlier that, Death Eater or no, the Potions professor was not of the same breed as his father; he'd been so tangled in Harry and what it meant to--to--And now he had, with Harry, and--

"You must confide in me, Draco," Snape said softly, with the succulence of a serpent's hiss. "I cannot help you if you will not tell me what you know."

Draco looked at Snape then, really looked at him. Fog clouded his thoughts. Tell him what he knew.

Draco drew a deep breath, steadying himself. What did he know?

He knew that he knew nothing about Snape, except that the man was just as skilled as his father in getting the answers he sought. Just as skilled at concealing a lack of knowledge. Weakness. Just as capable of finding another's weakness and exploiting it. He'd seen it happen time and again in the classroom, but now the knowledge took on a new, terrible meaning, speared with light from beyond the simplicity of classrooms and grades, into the realm of life and breath, and reality.

Draco knew that he had far too many weaknesses right then to allow such a creature into his thoughts.

He stood, brushing his hands down the front of his shirt. Looked coolly back at his professor. "I'm sure I have no idea what you mean, sir."

Snape's voice cut through his calm like a blade. "Draco. Your actions have never had greater consequences than they do now. At this time."

And just like that, the horrible, paralyzing uncertainty was back again. Draco had been able to hide from it for days, hide from it in Harry's bed, wrapped around Harry's scent, wrapped within Harry's body. Pretending there weren't other people beyond the crimson curtains. His father was far away, even as the day of which he'd written drew ever closer.

"I assure you, sir" -and if his voice shook just a little, it couldn't be helped-- "I'm fine. Everything is fine. Now, if it's alright, I'd like to get to the Great Hall in time for dinner."

For a moment, Snape looked as if he might snap forward, grab Draco and trap him in the room until he forced whatever he needed from him. Then the feeling passed. The odd, worried light in the man's eyes faded and winked out. He gestured soundlessly at the door.

Draco left. It wasn't until he'd made it halfway up the pressing, dripping stairwell to the surface level that he reeled and fell against the stone. Try as he might, he couldn't slow his rapid breathing, or calm his racing heart.

~

The Blood Ward: the single most complex and powerful of all "corporeal" magical spells. First discovered in the year 643 by Sebastienne La Roque, fully developed for magical use in 1287 by Igraine Pendragon. Outlawed 1504, ruling rescinded 1676. The legality and implications of the Blood Ward has been contested continuously since its discovery.

The Blood Ward is of the family of magic known as "blood sorcery." Blood sorcery is registered as neutral magic. However, the dark uses of this brand of magic are still, and have long been, disputed. See Appendices C-F.

The Blood Ward itself does not give or sustain life as is commonly thought, but rather binds the user to the receiver, creating a tie between the two that cannot be severed except by the one who has cast it. In most instances, a Blood Ward is a protective measure, feeding off the strength of the caster in order to protect the receiver, and must be severed soon after to prevent lasting harm to the caster. A Blood Ward of this type takes special skill to cast successfully. In rare instances, if used improperly, it may be cast inadvertently, resulting in an aberration of the magical properties of the spell. Only when accompanied by approaching death do such properties manifest themselves. The most well-known documented example of this scenario is the vampire.

In the case of vampiric blood magic, the Blood Ward may be twisted to withdraw the life force of the intended victim, and sustain the caster instead. However, vampires who knowingly cast Blood Wards on their victims risk being forever bound to said victim. As a result, the practice of blood sorcery among vampires is not common. See Vampirism - blood wards, pp. 1052.

To date, there exist two formally recognised types of Blood Ward. The first is the static, or "simple," Blood Ward. The colloquial title is misleading; there is nothing simple about erecting a static Blood Ward. The static Blood Ward is, in fact, the less stable of the two, as it requires a person to be bound by blood to a stationary object; in other words, an object that has never been classified as alive. Unless cast by a particularly gifted magic user, the static Blood Ward is often too weak to hold for longer than a day, and provides little protection to the caster.

The second type, the active Blood Ward, is a binding by blood between two sentient beings. It is far more stable due to the inherent magic of both beings, and may be used as a protective measure for days, months, even years, if the caster is especially adept. A Blood Ward of this type provides the strongest protection that tangible magic may offer. See Intangible Magic - Unnamed Incantations, pp. 3361.

A pair of hands slammed down on the table either side of the book, and Draco couldn't stop himself from jumping. He looked up and saw Granger leaning over him, chin jutting out, brows drawn together in a suspicious glower. Draco cursed inwardly for being foolish enough to let her sneak up on him. He'd been alone in the library; there was no excuse. He met her eyes levelly.

"Did you have something to say to me, Granger?"

Her nose crinkled with disgust, and he was strangely certain that she wasn't aware it was happening. Draco sneered back. "There are other ways to get my attention than by making a spectacle of yourself."

But her gaze was unnerving. Granger squinted, moving over his features. Her eyes flicked down from his face to the open pages of the book in front of him. Draco gritted his teeth and stopped his hands from sliding up to hide the text. No matter how casually he did it, she would see. Maybe he would've been able to get away with it in front of Weasley, but not Granger.

"Is there a particular reason you're researching these sorts of warding spells, Malfoy?"

Draco stared back at her coldly. Granger would be hard to crack, but he was almost certain he could stare her down. Three years ago, perhaps not. Hells, before Christmas he might not have done it. But he was still Draco Malfoy.

"Is it against Mudblood Law to look up warding spells, Granger? You are the expert, after all."

Her eyes narrowed. "I know something's going to happen," she hissed. "You're too easy to read, Malfoy."

"Remind me to work on that when you're finished nosing into everyone else's business," he responded lazily.

"First Harry, now this." Granger's fingers curled across the table top, as if she wanted to reach out and claw at him. He was almost interested to see if she would do it. "What are you supposed to do, keep him off his guard? Is that your role?"

Her voice had taken on a sharp edge, slightly frenzied, but no less effective. Draco straightened slowly in his chair.

"Going to tell your great Boy Wonder?" he asked, smirking at her. Granger's cheeks coloured, but there was a look in her eyes that he didn't like.

"And go against your venomous tongue?" She laughed. It was a soft, ugly sound. "I'm not that stupid, Malfoy. Thanks to you, he'd take too long to convince. But there is someone who will believe me, someone much more powerful, and you can be certain I'll be telling him."

She straightened up, and her hands slid off the table. Granger gazed down at him with extreme dislike. "Enjoy your research, Malfoy. While you still have time."

She turned and walked away, leaving him standing over his pile of books, fingers still pressed against worn pages. The glowing lamps in the library sputtered in a draught, and Draco stared after her, feeling his own wordlessness twisting in his gut.

* * *

North - safety, security

What in Salazar's name was he doing?

Draco was awake to witness the creeping silver light of dawn. It sent seeking fingers around the edges of his curtains, and his bed became a small chamber of icy green and black shadow. His fingers clenched against the sheet beneath him. There was too much empty space on either side of him. He stared at the stone ceiling and couldn't sleep.

His father's final letter lay next to him on the bed. To pick it up and leaf through it would have been more than foolish; Draco had had the feeling for days that Theodore Nott was spending his mornings - perhaps even his nights - awake, like some abhorrent vampire, stone-still on the other side of his own drapes. Barely breathing. Listening for the slightest sound of its prey stirring.

But reading the letter again was unnecessary anyway. Draco knew the text by heart.

I would order you, but by everything that I am, everything I have committed myself to being, I can do no more than request.

Draco shut his eyes and pictured his father, leaning forward in the dull firelight of a silent study, quill poised in one hand. His brow resting in the other, perhaps? Darkness outside; in Draco's mind, it was always night when Lucius Malfoy wrote that letter.

I shall be visiting you very soon.

"How soon is soon?" Draco mouthed into the darkness. Nary a whisper passed his lips. The vastness of Slytherin House cinched in on him like a slowly tightening serpent, scales sliding, tail coiling. Draco longed for the relative openness of the manor. There were snakes there, but they were snakes he knew. It was looking to be very unlikely that he would ever see the manor again.

He wanted to see it again. More than anything else.

Perhaps his father was right and it was better if he just went back. Bought himself and his mother a few hours of willful ignorance before Voldemort found them. Draco swallowed. The image of the Dark Lord arriving at the manor was horrifying, his magic vibrating through the walls, his flickering scarecrow silhouette morphing from the shadows in the hallway. But the knowledge that turned Draco's stomach was that, by the time the Dark Lord appeared, Draco would know his father was already dead. Touching the letter with the fingertips of one hand, able to smell the ink and dry scent of old parchment - things he associated with his father - Draco felt physically ill. He pushed the thought from him; it was much too vast to be comprehended.

Maybe his father really had been speaking to him in the study all those days, when all Draco had heard was the vague allusion, the frustrated banishments. Get out. Get out now, before it all collapses on top of us? Even Draco could not believe that his father was that precognitive. That he should now be telling Draco to run, to find his mother and spend the last scant moments with her instead of walking the path he had been preparing Draco for since the very beginning... that his father could have been giving him such a message as far back as that fateful summer? Lucius hadn't even known his own mind then.

Get out. Get away from me.

Go home. And not just home, but home, to the final place. The safe place.

It was hard to believe that he'd ever felt as safe as he had a mere month ago, in Harry's arms for the first night, high in Gryffindor tower.

Had he really thought he could escape any of it?

Draco eased his fingers around the parchment and lifted it carefully off the sheets, watching the spider-text flood back onto the previously blank surface. The second page... he held it up before him and read the final paragraph once. Twice. Shut his eyes.

His mother had asked. Draco had not heard her speak at all that last summer. And yet, he could not doubt his father's words. She'd asked for his return.

Before, it had seemed so very difficult to simply walk out of the castle, to take his bags and depart by way of the huge doors he walked through every day. Too many cords roped around his ankles, tugging in one direction, leading back to a single person still inside that castle. But now... Now, leaving didn't feel like such a hard thing to do, somehow.

Draco rubbed his face.

The sun climbed higher, over the floor and across his curtains, setting them briefly aglow before the high angle of the window shut out the light again. Draco heard Zabini, Crabbe, and Goyle rise and go through their various daily preparations. No sound from Nott. When Draco at last got out of bed, it was to find the dormitory empty, Nott's curtains parted neatly on a vacant bed. Draco dressed in silence, went upstairs. Ate breakfast. Found his way to one morning class, halfway to another before his nerves could no longer take the jittering. He turned there in the Charms hallway and headed back down to the dungeons, and his quill and parchment.

He had no idea what he would write. But he knew it would be addressed to his father. Part of him feared what would pour forth onto the parchment, what commitments he would be bound to uphold the instant he signed his name to the bottom.

The corridors were cold and dripping, the walls slimy. Draco's steps faltered there in the darkness; he stood scanning the shadows, wondering what, or who, lay within them. The underground of Hogwarts stretched like that same slumbering serpent, and he could hear the tell-tale hiss of breathing as the halls ushered the cool cave-like draught along.

He was in the serpent's belly. Had been for some time, and had not known it.

Draco's palms felt clammy. He lifted his chin and stared straight ahead, unwilling to close his eyes, unwilling to look around. Took a deep breath. He could center himself, he'd done it time and time again. There was nothing, and no one, to fear.

Inhale. Exhale.

Inhale. Exha--

"Malfoy."

Draco's heart hung stricken in his chest for a horrifying instant before pounding desperately into his fingertips and temples and throat. He spun, too quickly, and saw a girl behind him, half in the shade of a statue, tall, black hair--

"Millicent." The name left his lips in a rasp. He found he was clenching his fists and forced his fingers to relax. Couldn't get his breath back.

She moved into the light, almost timidly, and as soon as he saw her face, he knew he hadn't been imagining it. Her skin had the look of long having had the blood drained from it: wan and pale, stretched across tense muscle. Her large, wide hands clutched at her clothing as if it would provide her with some cover. But there was a glimmer in her eyes... Draco could read it as nothing except hope, sheer and unfettered.

"What do you want?" he said as neutrally as he could manage. She glanced down the hallway behind her - gods, he had passed right by her and not seen - and then came forward on quick steps.

"Dr... Draco. I need to..." She stopped. He could see her trying to form the proper words, trying to keep her composure. It struck him as so unnecessary, so incongruous that she might be struggling with appearances now, when she was clearly so unhinged already. "I wanted to speak with you. About... About someone. In Slytherin."

It was as if he were standing further down the hallway, listening to himself talk. Not a part of this at all. "Millicent..." He sighed, residual relief softening the sound. "I'm not the head of house."

"I know that," she said, a tiny bit raggedly. "I already tried to go to Snape. I just thought--I thought maybe you--"

"I what?" Draco felt his impatience rising. The hallway lowered, prickling at his senses.

She took a deep breath and leaned closer, as if about to impart a secret. And it became horribly clear a moment later that she was doing just that. "It's Nott. Theodore Nott. I think he's... He's been saying things to me that--And I thought maybe he'd been saying them to you--"

Fear twisted Draco's gut. "He hasn't been saying anything to me," he returned shortly, cutting her off. Millicent's eyes widened and she almost moved back.

Almost.

"Draco, please. I don't know who else to go to. I don't know if Snape is--" She bit off the words abruptly, and color rushed into her face, too harsh to be natural, not against the sickly white of her skin. "I--I mean--Draco, he's said things. About... About You-Know-Who, and I--"

Draco slashed a hand through the air. "I told you not to speak of him!" he hissed, looking up and down the empty hallway. "Have you no sense at all?"

Her fingers whitened, found her shirt hem again and hovered there. "I didn't mean--Draco, he knows something. I know he does, he's as much as told me! Has he said--Do you--"

For an instant, a terrible portent flashed across his mind, and the future thudded heavily into Draco's stomach. He was speaking before he could think, lashing out in a voice he barely recognized. "Bulstrode, stay away from Nott. Stay away from me. Grow up and stop telling me all your fucking woes!"

Millicent's frame seemed to shrink in on itself, and yet she stood frozen there before him, poised for flight like some hunted bird. Her hands curled tightly around her shirt hem, and he saw that spark of hope in her eyes dwindle and blink out under a wave of hurt.

In the same breath, the feeling of foreboding lost cohesion in his head. The details he'd known just seconds ago flitted away, leaving a solid ache in the pit of his belly. Frustration burned behind his eyes, unbidden. Draco turned from her and stalked away.

* * *

East - religious peace, unity

It wasn't a betrayal. It was a return home. And he couldn't be faulted for that; it was his home after all.

Draco's feet thudded dully on the stone steps as he climbed, and the cool wind swept at his bare throat, fluttering at the edges of his Slytherin robes. Somewhere above him, the hooting and twittering of owls could be heard. Draco tightened his grip on the letter he held. It was indeed addressed to his father, to his mother as well. He had been facing up to the contents ever since he'd written them the day before. And his mind showed no signs of releasing itself from the continuous circling it was engaged in.

"It's not about owing," he muttered to himself. Was it really so shameful to leave the site of danger, to flee toward safety, however brief?

He climbed higher, wishing that the cooler, cleaner air would whisk all the cobwebs away from his mind, all the stone and fog, and allow him to think again. He could still smell Harry's scent on himself, clinging gently all over him. His arms. His hair, he was sure. Even his school robes with their emblem seemed to be draped in the scent of Harry.

"Well, perhaps if you could just stay out of his bed for longer than a single night--" Draco grimaced, stopped halfway from one step to another and leaned against the stone wall with one hand. He shut his eyes and breathed deeply, both relishing and hating the familiar presence that floated to him through his nostrils. The problem, of course, was that Draco didn't want to stay out of Harry's bed. It was soft and comfortable there, and for some time, there had been no nightmares lurking beyond the folds of those bed hangings, in the warm, fast grip of those arms.

Harry would surely ask him why he had left that morning without waking him. Later today, perhaps between classes in some dark hallway as was their wont-- Draco's eyes shot open and he let out something very close to a laugh. Later? Later, when he saw Harry. Merlin's sake, what was "later" at all now? How much more "later" did any of them have? It was not an inexhaustible resource any longer. Hells, the letter he held in his very hands stole "later" from them all in great hunks.

Maybe he hadn't wanted sex with Harry. Maybe he'd fought it for so long because sex was what he knew, and Harry... was supposed to be different.

Was different, regardless.

"But you won't give it up now. Of course." He began to climb again. Wondered how Harry's mouth might shape the question of where he had gone so early in the morning. Knowing that he couldn't possibly tell Harry what had really driven him from his bed.

The nightmares were not supposed to follow him there. Despite all his hiding, they had discovered him at last.

He was lying beneath Harry, and the excruciating press of warm skin, slick with sweat and recent sleep, was against his body. He could feel it inside him, feel Harry there, knew it felt right to have Harry in him. As if he'd always been there. Harry raised himself carefully. Looked Draco right in the eye.

"Draco, you would tell me if something was going to happen. Right?"

Draco stared up at him steadily and nodded. "Yes."

Harry met his gaze mutely for several seconds, and Draco thought that maybe, just maybe, he knew exactly what it took to make himself into a snake again.

His stomach twinged. Fleetingly. The moment absorbed itself into Harry's kiss, his hands climbing up Draco's body, and Draco let it go. The smell of roses filled his senses, filled the room.

Had he... actually spoken those words? He'd dreamt them, surely. Surely he would have remembered something like that in all its detail. But Harry's touch was so vivid, his fingertips kneading familiarly, the thrust and stroke of their bodies together as near to the ease of breathing as Draco had ever come. So natural. He could remember the sex. He couldn't remember speaking or not speaking.

His dream-self was so ready to lie to Harry. Maybe it always had been. Even at their most intimate moment, he seemed to be prepared to weave falsehoods. And dreams were only a tiny step, a tiny shiver away from reality, weren't they?

It's not a betrayal, his mind whispered firmly. Not a betrayal to go back home. What did he really owe Harry Potter anyway? Wasn't his leaving just as protective of the Gryffindor as any conscious attempt on his part?

He needed to see his mother. He needed--

Draco entered the Owlery on rapid steps, breathing hard from the climb. He took a moment to let the dizziness of his sudden halt pass, and then crossed the dung-mottled floor to the large windows on the far side. He could see his eagle owl perched on the stone there, claws gripping into the mortar as if it were giving way beneath the pressure. Making soft clicking sounds with his tongue, Draco eased the large bird from its perch and onto his arm.

"Deliver something for me?" he murmured, then wondered why he was bothering to ask. The owl had never required it before. Was he really so desperate for someone to talk to, someone who wouldn't have already decided what he should be doing with himself before he even spoke?

The owl blinked beadily at him, then stepped off of his arm back onto the sill and lifted one leg, its weight shifting to accommodate. Draco sought for the twine he'd punched through the envelope and stroked the bird's soft feathers. He looped the thread carefully around the owl's leg, trying not to think about the contents of the envelope any longer.

He'd done his thinking. His trunk, his bags, were headed home the very next night. He'd already packed them as much as he could without drawing attention to the fact. He had ways to get them on their way, spells his parents had taught him so long ago. It would do no good to second-guess himself now.

His mother would be expecting him. And of all the things he couldn't stomach, the worst was the idea of disappointing her.

His owl balanced there quietly as he tied the twine. Harry's face tried to flicker into Draco's mind, along with a wave of horrid discomfort deep in his belly, and he shoved it all away. Nonetheless, the words of his dream echoed in his ears, and then another voice, forming words from long ago:

What is it, exactly, that you intend to do? his father had asked. And later, Snape: What is it you want for your future?

Draco wanted simplicity again, two sides to everything instead of this constant grey mass of maybes. He wanted home, and he wanted hatred... and he wanted to feel comfortable with being told what his own intentions were, what he wanted for his future.

"Good morning, Mr Malfoy."

Draco spun, hand still held out to his owl. The owner of the voice stood in the doorway, long purple robes settled across the stone floor, ancient beard flooding down his chest like a waterfall of mist. The owls fluttered restlessly at the new arrival, and Draco lifted his chin, both amazed and spiteful that he'd not felt Dumbledore's approach.

"Headmaster."

The old wizard's hands had been clasped behind his back, but now they came into sight. Draco could see a crisp, off-white envelope in the gnarled fingers of one hand. Dumbledore paced the outer rim of the room unhurriedly, raising an arm almost as an afterthought. A small speckled-brown owl dropped from its perch and alighted there, claws digging into the rich fabric of the wizard's robes.

"You are up quite early," the old man said in a genial tone.

Was this it? Somehow, though he had known Granger would go straight to the Headmaster, Draco had not expected the confrontation to take place here. Perhaps in Dumbledore's office high above the school. Perhaps in a classroom somewhere, or in the Great Hall for all to see. How simple his life would have been.

"Mailing a letter home," Draco answered flatly, and returned to his task, knotting the twine around his owl's lifted foot with steadier fingers than he'd expected. The owl blinked at him patiently, poised like a statue there on the sill.

"I trust your parents are well?"

Draco released the twine and turned around, letting the owl lift itself into the air and bear the missive away. He looked at Dumbledore wordlessly. Petulantly. It was an odd fit for him, after all these days of not being petulant. But the Headmaster merely went about his business of stroking the owl on his arm, offering it treats in the cup of his weathered hand. Sending it on its way at last with a fond smile.

He was still smiling when his eyes found Draco. "I understand you have been making use of our extraordinary library, Mr Malfoy."

Draco leaned back against the wall behind him and crossed his arms over his chest. "Schoolwork has been just appalling lately, sir."

It sounded snide, even to him. But Draco was curious about how far this man could be pushed. How much that snipe of a Mudblood had told him, and just how the old wizard would turn it to his advantage. Draco could care less how snide he sounded.

Dumbledore hummed softly. His blue eyes traced over Draco's face, and still there was no sign of that foreboding insinuation of magic against the corners of his mind. The Headmaster's gaze never wavered, however. "Filius seems to have altered his curriculum."

"Oh?" Draco shrugged. "I hadn't noticed."

"The Blood Ward itself," Dumbledore said, as easily as if he were speaking of the vagaries of sunshine as opposed to clouds, "does not give or sustain life as is commonly thought, but rather binds the giver to the receiver, creating a tie between the two that cannot be severed except by the one who has cast it."

Draco allowed a half-sneer, and watched the old man's eyebrows lift infinitesimally. "Yes, I see you've read that book as well."

"I should hope so, Mr Malfoy. I helped write that book."

A brief moment of surprise, and then Draco composed himself. He settled further against the wall, crossing his ankles and tilting his head. And it really was amusing; he didn't have to act. "Somehow, that doesn't surprise me."

"Did you find it to be helpful?"

Draco narrowed his eyes, searching the old man's face, but there was only curiosity there. "It was... very informative. As I'm sure you are well aware."

"Research is something I value very highly, Mr Malfoy." Dumbledore's voice rose and fell in a steady cadence. "It teaches many things, not the least of which is wisdom, should the researcher in question know where to find it."

He should have expected a sermon. Dumbledore did so enjoy giving them. It was only extra salt in Draco's wounds that the Headmaster sermonised the truth.

"Thus my desire to engage in it," Draco said with a shrug. But Dumbledore showed no signs of perturbation.

"I admit to finding your topic of choice intriguing. Blood wards are not simple magic by any means."

"And yet," Draco responded readily, "they seem to be everywhere, wouldn't you agree?"

Dumbledore looked at him. Draco fought down the irritation and went on. "When you know what to look for, it becomes exceedingly easy to see them. Sir."

"Your tone is unnecessary, Mr Malfoy," Dumbledore said mildly.

Didn't the man ever rise? Draco fought to keep his lips from pursing, from giving his level of frustration away. But it had made him angry, what he'd discovered in the library after Granger had departed, angry in a way he'd not predicted. Possessive, really. And he didn't want to be possessive over this.

He stared stonily at the Headmaster. "Amazing what you can sense. I'd no idea the use of blood wards was so prolific."

"It is not an uncommon magical practice," Dumbledore answered, and some obstacle inside of Draco clicked out of the way at last.

"The one shadowing Potter is quite obvious."

This time there was a flash of keenness in Dumbledore's eyes that hadn't been there before. Draco felt himself being searched. Liked it for one strange, interminable second. Dumbledore nodded - approvingly? - and Draco both wanted to embrace the sudden sense of worth and smack it away furiously. He shifted, restless. "Find it interesting that I can sense them, do you?"

"I would find it intriguing if you did not sense your own blood wards, Mr Malfoy."

For a beat, the words On Harry? hovered against Draco's lips. The idea that perhaps he'd unknowingly cast a ward over his new lover was... a little startling, but not as foreign as he might have thought. Wards were tricky things. Old magic. He'd not bled in Harry's presence, not that he could remember anyway. Then again, blood wards were not the only ward out there. But somehow, he didn't believe that that was what the Headmaster was talking about. Dumbledore looked at him owlishly and Draco steadied himself. It wasn't hard; his dislike for Dumbledore and the unchecked extent of his knowledge fed Draco's irritation until he knew where he was again. His lip was already curling on its own, thank Salazar.

"It hardly matters," he nearly snapped, checking his tone just in time. He shrugged again, more of a twitch to his shoulders than anything else. "Blood wards don't require the knowledge of the recipient in order to function."

"Evidently," Dumbledore intoned. He focused what could only be a calculating gaze on Draco. "Your father was always profoundly adept at blood sorcery. If I am not mistaken, he has placed several such wards over his only child."

Draco stared straight back at Dumbledore. "I'd be surprised if he hadn't."

But it was surprising. Not that his father had done it, but that Draco had never felt it. That it had taken reading a book in a school library to introduce him to the possibility. The inevitability. Of course his father had fixed such a charm to his flesh. Had his mother, as well?

"Your father cares for you a great deal," came the gentle voice.

Draco scowled, unable to help it, unwilling to help it. "Why does everyone seem to think that Slytherin families don't involve love?" he spat. "We're not aberrant, contrary to popular belief."

It was a cheap shot. Dumbledore showed no signs of being affronted, or of feeling guilty. Of course he wouldn't; he hadn't really implied what Draco had so snappishly accused him of. Draco struggled to reel himself in. This was no place to be losing control. Not in this sort of company.

"Blood wards don't require care, or concern," he said at last, affecting a pompous tone he knew suited him. "Just determination. A strong enough goal. The rest only comes if you're lucky."

Dumbledore nodded pensively. Draco leveled an empty smile at him. "I don't suppose Potter knows you have a ward like that over him?"

In those seconds, Dumbledore's face looked more careworn than Draco remembered. The old wizard's shoulders straightened as if the age were creaking right up out of his bones. "He does not know. It is an old ward, and in the twilight of its days."

"Growing too weak to keep it up?" Draco knew he was treading dangerous ground, and indeed, when Dumbledore's attention swiveled back to him, some small gleam had disappeared from his eyes. Draco felt himself being studied yet again.

"You have not completed your research," the headmaster murmured.

"I haven't consigned myself only to blood wards," Draco gritted out. Dumbledore nodded. Reached out to stroke the feathers of a white owl that was settled in sleep nearby.

"It is not a commonly known fact," the Headmaster said, "but the Blood Ward depends as much on the recipient as on the caster. Blood wards are not often cast on those we do not wish to protect, after all. Those we are not loyal to in some way."

Draco listened intently, wondering why he should be so interested in and so venomous towards the information at the same moment.

The Headmaster continued to caress the owl's ruffled feathers. "I cast the ward over Harry as an infant, in light of my loyalty to his parents, and their loyalty to me. Harry has carried that legacy very capably in the years since, and the ward has grown strong because of it."

"Then have no fear on Potter's account," Draco said with a smirk. "He's much too attached to being a goody-goody to break your hold over him."

Dumbledore's blue eyes shimmered. Draco couldn't read what was going on behind them. "My 'hold' over Harry, as you call it, was never in danger of breaking. Indeed, I would have to resort to tremendous transgressions to force his loyalties from me completely. But loyalties are a curious thing. They tend to change. Remold themselves over time. Not objective in the slightest, no matter what is said about them."

Draco felt the turn in the path just as surely as he knew its ultimate end. The extent of Dumbledore's knowledge was still in question, however. He forced himself to hold the Headmaster's gaze without flinching. "Has something gotten in the way?" he said levelly. Challengingly.

"Never before has his loyalty to another held the capacity to undermine his loyalty to me." Dumbledore looked thoughtful, a wise relic taking his measure of a world long experienced. "It leads me to wonder what exactly he would do for you, Mr Malfoy. To what lengths he would go."

He'd never betray your trust, Draco thought bitterly. Never. But he was sure as all hells not going to state out loud how deeply he had entangled himself with Harry. Let the old man unknot it on his own. There were still secrets Draco wanted for himself, places he could keep locked tight against almost any influence.

"You would have to ask him that," he answered at last, and knew triumph when Dumbledore's eyebrows rose. And then he felt the man's magic hovering around him for the first time. Not touching, just waiting. Sinking and rising sleepily. Draco's smirk turned back into a sneer. "Holding back, then? I'm flattered."

"You are not the same boy you were, Draco," Dumbledore said softly. "Indeed, you are no longer a boy at all. But you must understand that you are not the only one who is growing."

"Oh, spare me your condescension. I know well enough who I'm involved with."

Dumbledore's eyes went almost sad. "Yes. I believe you know him better than you know yourself at this time."

Draco's resentment, long held in check, swung up with more force than ever. He scowled. "You know I'll be able to tell if you go inside my head. My father taught me quite a few useful things."

One slow, smooth nod. "I do not doubt it. It is not my wish to take anything from you."

And yet he didn't ask the crucial question, the one that would require Draco to lie... or to break. Dumbledore did not press, and his magic remained at bay. Draco's palms felt clammy. The memory of Snape floated through his head, and for an instant - the briefest of instances - he thought about telling Dumbledore his fears.

All he had to do was speak. Tell him they were coming. Tell him that Snape knew. That Snape might not be loyal to him.

Draco jerked off the wall with a fury that surprised him. He yanked his robes straight, smoothing his fingers over the Slytherin emblem on the breast. "Then don't take anything from me," he hissed. His heart thudded erratically, chasing the anger down into his core. He strode past the old wizard and left the Owlery.

And felt the countdown begin again.

~

Gryffindor dorm was full of snores and restless shifting beneath sheets. Draco could not remember how long he'd been there, if it was the same night as the one before--If he'd had a day in between. The hours stretched on and on, until the shadows blurred worlds together.

Harry's skin was dusky and soft in the darkest hours. Draco's body still tingled with the aftermath of what they'd finished hours ago, the pressing of capable fingers and the rushed breath struggling to enter his lungs. Ever tingling, ever wanting. He could remember the sudden flood through his body, the helpless clutching of his own fingers, the feeling of arms holding him tight above the torrent. But now the face of his lover shared space in his head, with hair the same hue as his own, features pointed and elegant. Eyes distant and turbulent.

I shall be visiting you very soon.

Draco sat there naked with his knees bent, and pressed his palm to his forehead. Caught his breath over and over again. Fought the ebb and flow of frailty. Harry slept deeply beside him, one arm flung out toward him, fingers loosely curled. Draco spoke into the silence, too soft to make it past the curtains. Begging Harry, hearing his voice crack and fall into a child's fear. A child's need.

"I can't tell you. I can't do that, don't you see? I can't send him into a trap." Mere whispers to a sleeping boy, words that would never be uttered for Harry's conscious ears. "Gods, I can't."

The darkness pressed in, and the warmth circled.

"Do you hate me?" Silence. "Would you hate me?"

But he felt like he had already closed a trap on both of them.

* * *

South - love, happiness

It was guilt that finally drove Draco from Harry's room in the earliest hours of morning, creeping over misplaced trainers and scattered herbology books past Longbottom's bed. There was movement from one of the beds by the windows - Thomas'? - but Draco's resulting stillness was answered with nothing but a sleeping sigh. He felt his way to the wall in the darkness, touching one hand to the steady, cold stones, and traced along until he found the door. His clothes from the previous day felt stiff and old against his skin, and he shivered when he finally eased free of the portrait hole and stood in the chilly hallway.

No one was abroad, not even prefects. Draco skirted the shadows just in case, all the way down to the large, closed doors of the library. The castle felt hollow and empty, like a gigantic tomb. A whispered spell got him through the doors, and it was the work of a moment to hex the forbidden tomes mute. Draco had long been familiar with books such as these, books that screamed and wailed and cursed the reader in acidic tongues. His father's calm instruction on how to silence them was second nature to him.

Several of the books held more sinister spells in their bindings and pages. But he recognized them all and did away with them temporarily. The fear of a tracking spell was always there - they were often the most difficult to find - but the hours passed by one by one, and the library remained empty. Draco's weak wand light glimmered over cracked pages and disintegrating bindings for many, many minutes before what he was reading made his heart thump once in his chest, the knell of a hidden bell.

His wand hand lowered, beaming the page free of shadows.

He read until dawn's light began to creep over the library shelves, illuminating the dustiness of that section of the library. Pored over the words. Memorized. Shut his eyes and thought about jagged scars, and dead mothers.

Understood, as best as one enlightened person could.

Draco left the inner workings of his brain alone that pale morning. He tucked three ancient books beneath his arm before he departed the library. But he knew somewhere deep down that he was already putting things into order in his head. The final twist in his path, before it all dropped away into the unknown. Couldn't admit it to himself yet, but knew all the same.

~

He felt the ticking of the clocks like drops of blood, slipping one by one through his veins, counting down. The days were bright, crisp and sunny. His fellow students chattered as normal. Walked to and from class. Quidditch went on out of doors. Draco saw the slinking shadow approaching, closer and closer by the hour.

He spent his time reading, and when he was not reading, not whispering intricate incantations over his wand or himself in the thin morning light, he was wrapped in Harry. Wrapped in red and gold.

When he climbed the stairs to Harry's rooms, he left his Slytherin cloak down deep in the dungeons.

His father had spoken of opposites, of their impossibility. Nothing canceled another thing out; and Draco had never come face to face with such an unforgiving example. Everything had layers and shades, and even if some of them disappeared, the others would buoy to the surface, and the original thing would still exist.

But maybe Harry was his opposite. Harry would have spoken. Harry would not have let himself be confined, by his own machinations, into this lonely, dark corner. Harry would have been able to see the lines separating white from black; he would have weighed everything, and he would have, above all, been able to choose.

With Harry, there would have been a choice. And now, choice or not, Draco could feel himself slowly, inexorably, making his decision.

He sent most of his belongings home as he had promised, shrunken and sealed into an innocuous-looking package that the school owl bore off into the night. His evenings were spent in the depths of the dungeons, in a musty, disused corridor that cared little about the new magic seeping into its walls. Draco managed not to think about the age of the books he was thumbing through, or the spell he was perfecting down there in the darkness, or the sick dizziness it sent through his entire body over the first two days. The nightmares it gave him during the night. It still had not faded completely when he let his wand drop on the third night and left the hallway, heading toward the light, and Gryffindor.

The spell worked. That was as far as his mind could go.

He passed through the Great Hall and stopped, staring at the massive doors again. Just a single, forceful shove away from freedom. All he need do was walk through those doors and down through the gates of Hogwarts. Apparate home. So very simple... It thrummed through him with coaxing fingers.

He still could not turn his feet in that direction.

He was nowhere near deciding to use the spell, or even if he would be around to need it at all. But the magical trace it left within his veins felt warmer and more peaceful than he had felt in weeks.

It wasn't until he was lying on red and gold again, touching Harry, hearing the other boy spill soft, plaintive sounds into the room, that it came upon him in all its truth. His body shook with it; he listened to a voice that should have been cut away from the world years ago. The voice breathed his name - should never have been heard - and Draco was suddenly on him, wanting to feel the proof under his fingertips that Harry was there. He found Harry's shoulder and bit, his throat, fingers on his chin, met his mouth and broke apart there into pieces on Harry's tongue. Their breath mingled. Harry gasped Draco's name into the insignificant space between them.

Draco's eyes burned.

His father was right. For all Harry's power and luck - for all the certainty that he would fight Voldemort again - he wouldn't win. The Dark Lord's obsession was much denser, much deeper than the side of right. Much more potent. Harry's goal was far too vague to stand up against a fanatical conviction to destroy a specific living, breathing individual.

All the belief in the world would not keep Harry alive when Voldemort arrived.

* * *

The Death Eaters came the next evening, as the fading sunlight burned the towers of the castle into bloody spires that stabbed a violet sky.

~tbc~

"I am just a worthless liar.

I am just an imbecile.
I will only complicate you.

Trust in me and fall as well.
I will find a center in you.

I will chew it up and leave.
Trust me. Trust me. Trust me.

Trust me.

Trust me."

~Tool, Sober