Without Wand or Wire

Draco was midway through something that was either a late lunch or an early dinner as he sorted through the papers on his father's desk, when the fireplace in the study flashed green. Draco stood quickly, kicking his chair out of the way and drawing his wand as a familiar figure unfolded from the flames. Snape drew short when he spotted the wand aimed his way, but showed no fear, nor did he draw his own wand. He simply stepped far enough from the fire to keep his robes from catching when they turned orange again, and stood straight, arms tucked into his sleeves in his usual stance. His faint smirk could have been annoyed or amused.

"And just what do you plan to do with that, boy?" he asked dryly.

Draco's hand shook a bit, and his eyes were a bit wild as he boldy proclaimed to Snape, "You won't take me to him!"

"To who?"

"You-Know-Who!"

Snape raised a brow. "Do I?"

Draco stared, lowering his wand a bit. "Did ... did you just crack a joke?"

Snape smiled a rare, fleeting moment. He withdrew the scroll from his robes, prompting Draco to raise his wand again in suspicion. The younger man eyed the parchment warily before snatching it with his free hand. He unrolled and read it, his wand still raised, even when he looked up in confusion.

"You're taking me to Hogwarts?" Draco had known the professor was his godfather, though know one outside the family knew that, to the best of his knowledge. "I thought you were here to take me to see the Dark Lord!"

Snape steepled his fingers before him, his face betraying no expression as he asked "Do you want to see him?"

Draco squared his shoulders, his eyes speaking of a resolve that, Snape thought idly, would have served the boy well in Gryffindor. Unfortunately, it seemed that the young Malfoy was taking on the legendary Gryffindor foolhardiness as well.

"No," Draco answered the head of Slytherin House. "I never want to see that ... thing again. I’d rather die first. But if he wants me that badly, he can bloody well come himself, instead of sending one of his lapdogs!" he spat.

Snape's eyes narrowed. "Accio wand."

Draco's wand flew from its owner's hand into Snape's own. To his credit, the young Malfoy did not suddenly simper, as he would have done not so long ago. "Well, get it over with then," he demanded, his eyes never wavering from his professor's. Recent events had taken Draco's spoiled, soft mettle, let it sit in a forge of white-hot anger, battered it into a keen blade with one blow after another, and hardened it in the cold emptiness of a lonely heart. Snape wasn't sure whether to feel sorry for the boy or not; if those wretched happenings had made a decent man of the brat he'd once been, then wasn't it all for the better? Was the loss of an abusive sadist of a father or a cunningly cruel mother really a loss at all?

For Snape could clearly see saw the part of Draco that Harry probably never would -- the part that thought it needed an armor of hate and cruelty to protect it. That part was a sad, scared, lonely little boy who wanted more than anything the love and approval of a father and mother who had no love to give. That little boy had been taught at a young age that the only measures of worth were heritage and ability. If Muggle-borns, wizards and witches with no magical heritage, could be more adept at magic than a pure-born, where did that leave that same proud and noble pure-born? That was why Malfoy hated Granger so much, and the half-blooded Potter. That was why Snape had hated Lily, even as he'd loved her.

Both he and his godson had been taught since the cradle that to accept Muggle-borns as equals was to denounce themselves, to become nothing. And when your father was constantly berating you, and making you feel worthless, you'd do anything to prove to yourself that you were worth more than something your father despised, even if that meant lying to yourself -- or harming another. The line that separated you from the monsters of the world seemed to keep moving with each justification, until it just disappeared entirely.

Thankfully, Dumbledore had helped the former Potions Master find that line again, and move far, far away from it. Snape only hoped the man could do the same for his godson.

"I thought being in Slytherin had taught you better than that, boy. Don’t get cocky when you’re out of your league. Don’t go telling your enemy your plans. And don’t give up a useful position until you have to. If you really want the Dark Lord dead, wouldn’t it serve you better to get close to him, close enough to hurt him, rather than giving him reason to want you dead outright? You're lucky I'm on Dumbledore's side."

"What? Dumbledore?! You? But--"

"But I was your father's best friend? Your godfather? A Death Eater?" Snape pulled up his sleeve, revealing his own Dark Mark. "Yes, I've been all those things. And I was also a double-agent at the end of the last war. I ... had a change of heart. And so have you, it seems, else you'd still be eager to follow in your father's footsteps."

Draco sat down, still eying his visitor warily, but starting to let his guard down. "And how do you know I haven't? Perhaps the Dark Lord is using me to spy on you."

Snape smiled grimly. "Well, there's one way to find out. Legillimens!" And with Draco's own wand, Snape invaded the young Malfoy's mind.

Draco was a toddler, and trying to hug his father, who was pushing him away ... Draco was seven, and was being savagely punished by Lucius for having accidentally broken a Dark Artifact ... Draco was nine, and was afraid to tell his parents that he had fallen off his broom and hurt his arm, so he suffered the pain in silence ... Draco was ten, and overheard his mother telling Mrs. Parkinson that she was afraid Draco was going to embarrass them at school, he seemed so poor a wizard thus far ... Draco was paying Ronald Weasley back for laughing at his name, only to have his offer of friendship rebuffed by Potter ... Draco was calling Hermione Granger a mudblood ... Draco was talking about the Chamber of Secrets with Crabbe and Goyle, taking delight in the idea of someone being killed ... Draco was acting far more hurt by the hippogriff than he actually was, in order to get attention from Pansy Parkinson ... Draco was plotting a vicious practical joke to play on a Muggle-born first year ... Draco was getting the Dark Mark burned into his arm, while his mother screamed in agony ... He was holding her in his arms as she died ... He was facing the portrait of his father, and seething with hatred for this man he'd once worshipped ... He was trying to set Peaky the house-elf free ...

Snape finally broke off contact, satisfied that there was no plot of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named that the boy was involved in -- not knowingly, anyway. Draco stumbled to the ground, eyes wide with shock and fear, chest heaving. Snape offered his hand to pick the boy up off the floor, but Draco just started at it dumbly for a long moment. He still ignored the offering when he finally found his voice.

"W-what did you just do to me??"

"It's called Legillimency. It's a type of spellcasting that allows one to enter the mind of another, so long as you maintain eye contact; the Dark Lord uses it to test the loyalty of his followers. Were you skilled in Occlumency, as I am, likely you would have been able to throw me out of your mind easily enough after my initial attack. And if you intend to beat the Dark Lord at his own game, I highly suggest you let myself or Dumbledore teach it to you."

Draco scowled. "You just forced yourself into my mind, and I'm supposed to trust you? And why would I need to know Occlu-whatever anyway, seeing as I have no intention of getting anywhere near the Dark Lord again? Or is that the price of asylum at Hogwarts? Serving that Muggle-lover Dumbledore the way my father served Voldemort? I wonder, does he treat his minions with the same respect and kindness the Dark Lord showed my father? I think I'll save my loyalty for myself, thanks all the same!"

Snape withdrew his hand at that, a dangerous look crossing his face. "Unlike the Dark Lord, Dumbledore does not force loyalty upon his followers. We give it to him freely, largely because he lets us choose whether we will aid him or not. And we follow because he is wise and powerful but not cruel, and because he is our best chance at getting You-Know-Who out of our lives for good! Don’t think that the Dark Lord will let you just quit being a Death Eater, Malfoy! If you're not with him, you're against him, and he'll kill you alongside the rest of us if he wins! So long as you choose not to aid him, you may as well aid us, and increase all our chances of seeing another day."

* * *

"I'm not sure I want you going over there again," Mr. Parkinson told his daughter when she'd finished telling her parents about the time she'd spent with Draco that day. "Not if Draco has the Dark Mark now. You did what Dumbledore asked you to; I don't see as you need to put yourself at risk anymore."

Pansy crossed her arms, giving him the same icy-but-bemused smile that his wife always wore when he'd said something she'd found highly stupid. Sure enough, a glance to the side revealed that Mrs. Parkinson had adopted the same pose.

"Soooo, it's okay for you and mum to play at being Death Eaters, but I'm ... what? Too young? Too delicate? Should have thought of that before taking the job yourself, shouldn’t you?"

"And how do you figure that?" he scowled back. Was she calling him delicate?!

Pansy and her mother shared a glance that said all men were idiots and rolled their eyes. It was like watching each woman in turn looking in a mirror. "Da," Pansy began, her voice sickeningly sweet, honey hiding a bee's sting, "seeing as I'm a child of two Death Eaters, isn’t it rather expected that I'll be getting the Dark Mark soon myself? And that, if I don’t, or if I suddenly shun my boyfriend after he's revealed his own Dark Mark to me, then I must be a traitor? So not only would I lose my usefulness as a spy for Dumbledore, I'd probably be dead within a fortnight! Hell, the Dark Lord would probably insist you do the job yourself, and when you refused to kill me and prove your loyalty, he'd kill the both of you, too!"

Mr. Parkinson's mouth worked soundlessly as he tried to protest, making him look somewhat like a fish out of water. He looked to his wife for support, but she continued to glare at him, one brow raised. Though few knew about it, Heather Parkinson came from a long line of feminists; suggesting that a daughter of hers was not capable of handling herself was probably the worst thing her husband could do. Finally, he relented.

Pansy didn’t waste a moment, but went straight out the door and down the street, to the Malfoy estate. Her parents watched her progress for as long as they could through the picture windows of their grand manor, a mixture of worry and pride in their eyes.

They felt a sudden, intense pain in their Dark Marks not long after she disappeared from view, and knew Draco was feeling it too. The big question was what he would do about it. Resisting the urge to go out after her, Mr. Parkinson took his wife's outstretched hand and headed for the fireplace in their drawing room, intent on their own mission.

* * *

Pansy was greeted with a hearty hug from Peaky at Malfoy's front door, one that nearly knocked her off her feet. Not having had much emotional connection to her own house elves, and more than a little disgusted to have such a filthy creature pawing at her robes, she was less than enthusiastic in response, but she patted the creature comfortingly, albeit a bit awkwardly, on the back all the same.

"Urm, hello ... Peaky? ..."

"Oh, Mistress is doing Master a world of good! He is eating now, and he has been laughing! Oh, it's wonderful! Peaky is so thankful to Mistress!"

Pansy felt a flash of jealousy, until she realised that the house-elf was talking about her, and not some trollop Draco has somehow acquired. Get a grip, Parkinson! Why should you care, even if he had?

Peaky practically dragged Pansy down the halls to Lucius Malfoy's study, which Pansy had seen the interior of only once. That particular day, during the summer between their second and third years, Draco had wanted to show her a new acquisition his father had made. When Lucius had found them ogling it, he'd been friendly enough to her, but there was no mistaking the sarcasm directed at his son, nor the rage that it failed to mask. She next saw Draco three days later, moving stiffly and sporting a split lip that she was certain was unintended -- not because she didn’t think Lucius had meant to severely harm his son, but because when you were a noble, beatings were usually restricted to areas that were easily hidden, to keep the gossip-mongers at bay. Obviously Lucius had gotten carried away. Pansy felt a savage satisfaction in knowing the monster was dead, as marched boldly into his precious private study.

She let out a little cry of surprise as she nearly walked into Severus Snape.

Snape was rubbing the inside of his left arm, which bore the Dark Mark, and telling Draco, "It's your choice. You would be invaluable to us as a spy, it's true. But you should know that, if you go to the Revel, you may very well be asked to harm, even kill someone--"

"Pansy!" Draco was equally surprised by her entrance.

Pansy looked form Draco to Snape and back again. What was Snape doing there? "A-are you going to a Dark Revel?" She tried to hide her disappointment -- it wouldn't do to seem unhappy about Draco's participation in such a thing in front of Snape, if the Professor was another Death Eater. ...

"No. No, I'm not going to go, if it means I might have to kill someone." He addressed that last to Snape, his head held high. "I've had enough of death this summer, thanks all the same. Dumbledore will have to find some other use for me." He peeked at Pansy out of the corner of his eye, trying to gauge her reaction, still uncertain if he had really seen her that afternoon or just dreamt it.

Pansy eyed Snape, confused. Wasn't he a Death Eater? "Dumbledore?" Understanding was quick to sink in "You’re a double agent too!" And all this time, she'd thought he was ... guilt hit her stomach hard. People probably had thought the same of her and her parents.

Snape narrowed his eyes at her. "What do you mean, 'too'? Don't tell me Dumbledore has been using you as a spy for the Order?"

Her own eyes flashed angrily. "And what's that supposed to mean?! I'll have you know I've been doing this since I was eleven, thank-you-very-much!"

Draco looked ill. "Since you were eleven? Is that the only reason you went out with me? To spy on 'Draco Malfoy, son of a suspected Death Eater'?!"

The sense of guilt was now ten times worse. She didn’t know why it upset her to see him looking so hurt, but it did. "Draco, I --"

Draco started to laugh, but his eyes were shining with pain. "I should have known. You know I'd deluded myself into thinking you actually cared about me when you came here earlier? So why'd you come back, Pansy? Here on a mission to steer me away from the Dark Side, same as our dear Professor here?"

"I do care about you, Draco!" she protested, then stopped short with shock at her own words. She meant it. She really did love Draco Malfoy.

Clearly, by the expression on his face, Draco didn’t believe her, though.

She whirled on Snape. "I need Veritaserum!"

He scowled at her. "Do you have any idea how long and tedious it is to make that potion? I'm not going to just hand over a bottle to y--"

"Fine! You can perform Legillimency, right? Like my Mum and Dad?"

Wary, Snape nodded.

"Then do it on me!"

"What? Why?"

"I want you to prove to Draco that I do love him!"

"And why should I believe it just because he says so?" Draco snapped, before Snape could make his own protest. "For all I know, this could be some elaborate plan you two have cooked up with Dumbledore, to make sure I come along willingly!"

Snape grabbed Draco's left arm, his right hand wrapped around Draco's Mark, holding the wrist tight with a strength never hinted at by his thin, sickly frame. He then pointed Draco's wand at Pansy, shouting, "LEGILLIMENS!"

Draco felt the world spin under his feet as his vision grew dark. When he came to his senses, he was still standing beside Snape, but they were no longer in his father's study. They were in the intersection of two brightly-lit, ornate, but somewhat cold hallways. Everything was a bit hazy. Pansy stood before them, wringing her hands and looking uncertain.

"I ... I'm not sure where to find it." She bit her lip as she looked about. "I didn’t even really know I felt this way until today. ..."

Snape held his left hand out to her, and she took it with her right. "Just think about Draco and relax. Don’t try to think -- let the thoughts come to you."

She did as she was told. Though they didn’t move their feet, they began to drift forward. They seemed to be floating forever, turning into hall after hall, all the while with the sensation that they were spiraling downward, before finally stopping outside a door with a carved-rose doorknob. Draco noted that this part of the hallway seemed ... warmer. And the door seemed more inviting than the others.

"You're sure about this?" Snape asked, his voice uncharacteristically gentle.

Pansy swallowed hard and nodded. The door swung open by itself, and there was a flash of white light. ...

If Draco had grown up as a Muggle, he would have likened the experience to watching a video montage in some sort of virtual reality game. It was as if he were Pansy himself, looking at the world through her eyes, feeling what she felt. He felt her irritation and occasional disgust with the Memory-Draco whenever he was being especially arrogant or cruel. Conversely, he also felt her surges of satisfaction, and even delight, whenever he put Granger or Potter in their place with a barbed word. He felt her rage at Lucius and sympathy for Draco whenever Lucius saw fit to beat his son. He felt her appreciation and affection whenever Memory-Draco doted on her, or gave her a gift. He felt the wonder that she felt in his wanting to be with her at all, when she was certain she was no beauty. He felt the affection grow when they laughed together, or shared a quiet moment. Apparently he had known a few moments of real laughter when he was with her, the kind that wasn't borne of the pain of others. And in those times, she was able to forget her mission, forget that they were nobles, or that their parents were Death Eaters. They could just be two kids, two friends, an ordinary couple like any other walking through the halls of their school. She could feel at peace, content in his arms, or holding his hand. She found she actually enjoyed his touch, his kiss, despite her better judgment. And as the frequency of those kind of moments increased, so grew her disdain for him at the times when he slipped back into old habits.

He felt her fear as she looked for him in his mansion that morning, wondering if she might have lost him for good this time. Felt her pity, her own personal sadness, as she found her friend broken in spirit. The horror she'd felt as she thought he might have killed his own mother -- and fiercely prayed he hadn’t. The strange mix of grief and hope as she held him, comforting him, determined to free him of the horrors of being a Malfoy once and for all. The almost-giddiness at the thought of seeing him again that made her defy her father and practically carried her back to the mansion just minutes ago. The jealousy she'd felt when she'd thought the house elf had said he was with another woman. The fear and disappointment she felt when she came upon him with Snape, and thought he was going to embrace being a Death Eater after all. The guilt she felt when he'd learned of her betrayal. The fear of losing him when he'd learned the truth. The desperation she'd felt to prove to him that she loved him, a need so great that she willingly allowed him and their teacher to enter her mind, baring her soul to both of them --

And just like that, they were back in the hallway, staring at the door.

Self-conscious, she pulled her hand away from Snape's. At that, Snape broke off the spell, and released Draco from his grip. None of them could look anyone else in the eye at first.

Draco felt like the floor was moving again, his head was reeling from all the images and emotions he's just felt, trying to sort them from his own. One thing was certain in his mind: all that he'd just experienced was real. There was an undeniable ring of truth to it all, he felt it in his bones, in his gut. Pansy really did love him -- even as he'd also revolted her.

Through it all, she'd held onto an unconscious belief that he could change for the better -- as well as a sort of understanding that she was no saint herself. While he was a bit hurt by some of the things he'd seen, and the knowledge that she had initially spent the time with him out of a sense of duty, he understood why she'd felt as she had and done as she did. He'd used her too, hadn’t he? Wasn't that the way of the Slytherins? So he could hardly justify being angry with her for that. Besides, he wasn't too enamored of those aspects of himself that she'd balked at either; they were things he was now determined to change. He was fairly certain now that he felt the same way about her, and never wanted to give her reason to be disappointed -- or heaven forbid, revolted -- by him again.

He finally looked up at her. She was wiping tears from her cheeks, sniffling a little, and still wouldn't look at him. He walked up to her and pulled her softly into his arms, resting his cheek against her hair. She stood stiffly for a moment, then seemed to melt against his chest, shaking. Maybe they weren't the most perfect of couples, but the seed had always been there, and now seemed to finally be growing.

Draco realised he was shaking a little too; he could hear it in his voice as he asked with a nervous laugh, "Whatever gave you the idea that you're not beautiful?"

She looked up with a half-laugh, half-sob, then buried her face in his chest again and began crying in earnest.

Draco looked at Snape in alarm, but the professor could only shrug as he stood there uncomfortably.

"Um, am I interrupting something?" came a simpering voice from opposite the door, startling the study's occupants nearly out of their skins. They found Peter Pettigrew regarding them with a bemused look from a large looking-glass on the wall. A Death Eater's Communication Glass.

"Uh, no!" Draco told the Dark Lord's right-hand man, looking for all the world like his own hand had been caught in the cookie jar.

"What's the matter with her?" Pettigrew asked, gesturing with his head to Pansy.

"Nothings the matter with me!" Pansy snapped. Draco felt a flush of pride at how quickly she'd composed herself. "And I’ll thank you to talk to me directly, instead of acting like I can't hear you! But if you must know," she continued, not giving Wormtail a chance to reply, "I was crying happy tears for Draco, since he's finally been given the Dark Mark. As if it's any of your business!"

"Oh." Not eager to speak anymore with the cranky Miss Parkinson, Pettigrew turned his attention to Snape. "And what're you doing there?"

Snape raised a brow, and Pettigrew blanched. "I, too, am here to celebrate my godson's induction to our ranks. Unless our Lord disapproves?"

Wormtail looked as though he didn’t really believe Snape, but was too afraid of the man to question him further. "Er, well, you both felt the call, right?"

"Actually, Pettigrew, I've been directed to bring Malfoy back to Hogwarts. Dumbledore might get suspicious if we don’t go back there now." He held up the scroll of parchment.

"Nothin' doin', Snape!" Wormtail protested, his fear of Voldemort overriding his fear of his former classmate. "Our master wants the Malfoy boy to attend his first Dark Revel. You're just going to have to tell Dumbledore that he was out somewhere when you got here! And you come too, Parkinson: I'm sure the Dark Lord would appreciate your enthusiasm and give you a Mark of your own tonight!" With that, the mirror housed it's normal reflection once more.

"Oh wonderful," Pansy muttered. "Professor, please tell me that when we kill You-Know-Who, the Mark will fade from us all. ..."

Draco scowled. "What do you mean, 'us all'? You're not really going to get the Mark tonight. ..."

Pansy smiled ruefully. "Don't see a how I'm going to get out of it now."

Draco laughed. "Simple: we're not going anywhere near the Dark Lord tonight! We're going with the Professor to Hogwarts! He can’t reach you there."

Pansy grew serious. "Draco, you might be able to, but now that Pettigrew has commanded me, I have to go. If I don't, they will question my loyalty, and if they question mine, they'll question that of my parents. I'm not going to put them any more at risk than they already are."

Draco grew alarmed. "Can't we just pretend that I've kidnapped you or something?"

"Draco, they're already suspicious of you and Snape -- if I disappear with you, the Dark Lord won't care if I went willingly or not; he won't risk it. He'll want me dead, and he’ll order my parents to take care of it. And when they don’t, he'll have them killed too."

"Like my father. ..." Draco said softly, looking away. "If .. if they're anything like him. ..." His voice grew hard. "Lucius chose his path. ..."

"Draco," Pansy implored, touching his arm gently, "my parents are double-agents, like me. They don’t truly serve him. They aren't ..." There was no polite way to finish the thought.

Draco was silent a little too long, his face turned away into the shadows. She worried that she'd offended him. Finally, he took a deep breath and turned back to her. "All right. I understand. But I'm coming with you, then." Even Draco, who'd spent the bulk of his life caring about no one but himself, understood that he'd found something precious with Pansy, and would do anything to protect it.

She smiled and nodded. She didn’t like putting him in danger, but she knew that, so long as Voldemort lived, none of them were ever really safe anyway. The more spies Dumbledore had, the greater the chance they all had of finally defeating him. And, truth be told, she was scared out of her wits, and wanted the company.

"What about you, Professor?" she asked, turning to him.

Snape, his lips pursed in thought, was transfixed with the mirror, as if he could still see Pettigrew there. "He knows. We thought so, but ... yes, there's no question of it now. ..."

[Draco, Pansy, and Snape, in the Communication Glass.]

"A question of what, Professor?" Draco asked him.

"That the Dark Lord knows I'm helping Dumbledore. We thought Crouch might have reported back on my actions when he was disguised as Moody. He never asked about it directly, though, and to the few people who knew I’d been a Death Eater, it was simple enough to concoct a story about not wanting to blow my cover at Hogwarts, where I would be most useful as a spy. To that end, I'd even fed the Death Eaters less important information about Dumbledore's plans -- things the Headmaster and I agreed on ahead of time, of course. We hoped that these things would satisfy the Dark Lord, convince him I still served him. I was even able, or so we thought, to use my work at Hogwarts as an excuse to refrain from participating in Dark Revels. But now ... Wormtail's mind is so weak that I was able to do Legillimency through the mirror just now, as we spoke. He's so pathetic that I didn't even need to use my wand or speaking the word aloud! If I didn’t know better, I'd think all Gryffindors are simple-minded. ..." He shook his head to chase thoughts of his lessons with Potter form his mind. "Anyway, Pettigrew knows I am a traitor; the Dark Lord has told him. And I also saw that, if I go tonight, they plan to wrestle what information they can from me with the Cruciatus Curse, and then ..."

"Avada Kedavra," Pansy said quietly.

Draco spoke up. "Professor, can I ask a favor of you?"

His face pale, Snape only nodded.

Draco walked over to the door, opened it, and called into the hall. A second later, he was gesturing a small figure inside the room. "Peaky, this is Professor Snape. You and the others are to obey him until I say otherwise, all right?" He dismissed her, then turned to Snape. "Take my house elves with you to Hogwarts. There's no point in keeping them here, and I’d rather they be someplace safe."

Snape's shook his head fiercely. "There's no way I'm letting you two go on to face the Dark Lord alone! Dumbledore would never forgive me! I would never forgive me! Either I go with you, or you go with me!"

Draco faced his godfather unflinchingly. "You said Dumbledore allows his followers to choose what they will do for themselves. I know the risks, but I choose to do this. You said it yourself, I'm in a position to do something to help bring the Dark Lord down! But you would just be putting the mission in jeopardy. And there are house elves here who need sanctuary as much as I do, elves that, as they are innocents, you have a duty to see to safety. Now, will you help those who need you, or do you insist on putting Pansy and me at risk?"

Snape scoffed. "You're not practiced in Occlumency, boy; you can’t protect yourself from his probes if he forces you to look him in the eye and uses Legillimency on you."

"So I won't give him a reason to look! It's a risk I'm willing to take."

"And I am skilled at Occlumency, Dumbledore himself taught me," Pansy chimed in. "So you needn't worry about me."

"And I suppose you can withstand the Cruciatus Curse?" Snape asked drolly. "because the Dark Lord likes to use that to punish failure."

Pansy visibly paled, and considering she was already a very fair-skinned girl, that was saying something.

Draco crossed his arms, looking like his old smug self. "Lucius must have taken a page out of the Dark Lord's book when he was raising me, then; he used that curse on me often enough. He liked it because it hurt a lot but didn’t leave a mark for the neighbors to talk about. I think I can handle it."

Snape felt a sharp pang of sympathy for his godson. Lucius, my old "friend", how could I ever have called you that? He sighed. "All right, tell you what. Let me have a word with Dumbledore, see what he thinks."

Snape pulled a small mirror out of his robes, and called the name of the Hogwarts Headmaster. He told Dumbledore everything that had transpired since arriving at Malfoy Manor, fully expecting the man to talk Draco and Pansy out of their foolhardy mission, else send him along. But in the end, Dumbledore agreed with Draco, and told Snape to bring the Malfoy household's elves to Hogwarts. He also asked Snape to let Malfoy have his mirror a moment.

"Draco," Dumbledore began when the fair-haired youth was in sight, "I just wanted to thank you for helping us, and to tell you how proud I am of you. It's hard to follow one's heart, when so many other voices are telling us to do otherwise, but to follow in the face of such adversity it is to prove that you have one. I'm sorry that your father apparently did not, but I'm proud of you for choosing not to follow in his footsteps. And if you should find that following your heart rather than your ambition pleases you, it's never to late to change houses," he added with a twinkle, before his image faded.

The old Draco, of just weeks before, would have bristled at such sentiments, at the suggestion that being like his father was less than desirable, when he'd spent his whole life trying to please the man. But now ... now he liked the idea of having no one to please but himself -- and Pansy, of course, who, unlike his father, was able to reciprocate his love. It even gave him a strange tingly feeling to hear Dumbledore tell him he was proud. It had been a long time since his father had said such a thing to him, and even when he did, it had never felt quite this meaningful. And Draco had never heard such words directed at him from Dumbledore before. Draco couldn’t help but feel like he'd stumbled into some alternate universe with all the sudden reversals in his life. He had always hated Dumbledore; hearing praise from the man shouldn’t have been making him feel this way! First he was looking to his house elves for approval, and now Muggle-lovers; what the hell was happening to him? At this rate, he would be buddying up to Harry Potter and his pals before the night was out! There's no way I'm switching houses, though! Unless ... he wasn't talking about Slytherin and Gryffindor? ...

"So ... how do we get to the Revel?" Pansy asked tentatively. "Pettigrew didn’t tell us where to go."

"I know where to go," Draco told her, sounding a bit mystified.

Snape nodded. "Through the Dark Mark. You won't be going directly to the Revel, though, the Dark Lord's gotten too paranoid," he elaborated. "You'll meet a group of other Death Eaters at a rendezvous point, then use Portkeys to go on to one location after another until you get to the Revel. That decreases the chances of you being followed or betraying him. Now you better get going, or you might miss the first Portkey." He didn’t sound like he would mind if they did, though.

Gripping Pansy's hand tightly, Draco used his other hand to drop Floo Powder into the fire, speaking the name of the first rendezvous point. The last thing Snape heard was Pansy remarking that she liked the new haircut Peaky had given Draco, before they left the Professor alone with his thoughts and a few dozen elves.