Written for the the_ouroboros Snape/Draco ficathon. And see the lovely illustration by Duckpuppy, and the colored version by Artimusdin!
It was still raining when Draco Malfoy got out of the old witch's house; the cup of tea she'd served had been fortified with a generous dollop of firewhisky, but the damp air still chilled him to his bones. Only three more cottages to check in Wellbridge, and then he could call it a night.
He paused beneath the eaves to add a mark to his scroll: Ygrane Wentwhistle, Forest Glen, Wellbridge; witch, widow, no children, 126 yrs. He ticked the box for "no threat", then rolled the parchment back up and stuck it in the pocket of his cloak. Out came the map again.
By now it was covered with tick marks and crosshatchings, and little notations in the margins such as "cstl ruin no mg" and "unp. hse here", but there was a question mark and an arrow pointing to a spot a few kilometres north of the village proper, and two other crosses marking places he'd noted from the air when he'd done the reconnaissance flight. The question mark was closest; he'd do that first. The map went back into his pocket, and he Disapparated.
At the cottage, it seemed to be raining even harder, and Draco wondered for a moment if it were possible to use weather magic that way as a Discouraging charm. It would explain a lot about Scotland, anyway. Not to mention this cottage, which looked snug and secure, a wisp of smoke curling from the chimney, a bastion against the rain; the Muggles in town had told him it was a ruin that had been abandoned for years.
He knocked on the door, two sharp raps with his right hand. His left, of course, held his wand. It was sometimes an advantage, being left-handed, as most wizards and witches automatically looked to their opponents' right hands first.
After a pause long enough to make him uncomfortable, the door slid open just enough to show a wand-tip pointed at him.
"Go away."
Well, it wasn't as though he hadn't had this kind of reception before. He forced his voice to be as steady and matter-of-fact as possible. "If you curse me, you'll be killed by my backup. If you listen to me, nothing is going to happen to you." Neither statement was completely true, but the two together were usually enough to get him in the door.
Not in this case, evidently. The wand-tip never wavered. "Then talk."
Draco tried again. "It would be more comfortable to discuss this inside, don't you think?"
"Talk, or go away." A quiet menace lurked in the calm voice; he'd better take it slowly, or things might get sticky. It wasn't that he particularly minded hexing people, but there'd be all that paperwork - sometimes it seemed that the Dark Lord's bureaucracy was worse than the Ministry's had been - and in any event, witches and wizards who chose to live on their own, in Unplottable houses with Disillusionment charms to keep the Muggles away, were generally devious sorts who were fast with their wands.
He put on his most charming smile, even though he knew the wizard inside could hardly see it through the rain and the crack in the door. "My name is Draco Malfoy, and I'm with the Census Office Field Survey. Now that we've identified this as the house of a wizarding family, I just need to ask you a few questions. Name, please?"
"Bransom."
Draco eased under the edge of the roof a bit farther so that he could unroll the Names scroll without getting it too wet. It also got him out of the direct line of the man's wand, a necessity considering he hadn't enough hands to hold the scroll, the quill, and his wand at the same time. Three weeks ago in Wiltshire there was a witch who'd been a bit jumpy, and he'd ended up casting a Stunning spell with his quill. Not completely ineffective, but he'd rather use the wand, all things considered.
"Bransom, let's see." He wrote it in the box at the top and watched the red and blue lines extend. "Hmm. According to our records the Bransoms are primarily in Cornwall and Devonshire. Your first name?"
"Edgar." The menace was gone from the voice, but the tension remained. Draco didn't need to look at the scroll to tell that his name was neither Bransom nor Edgar. It was going to be one of those nights, then.
The Names scroll went back into his pocket, and the quill was exchanged - discreetly - for the wand. He pitched his voice with authority: "I'm afraid there's a bit of a discrepancy in our records. Would you like to explain it to me - inside, if you please - or would you care to make your excuses directly to Lord Voldemort?"
The man behind the door laughed, without humour. "Then by all means, Draco, come inside."
Hearing his name set his senses on edge. Someone he knew, then. Someone who had reason to lie to Lord Voldemort's agent. His grip tightened on his wand as the door swung open. The man inside stayed back, out of sight.
Not the most reassuring of situations, thought Draco. "Drop your wand and toss it out here."
"I throw myself on your mercy," came the reply, and he strained to recognize the bitter voice. Older than him, maybe one of his parents' friends. Then there was the skittering sound of wood on a stone floor, and a wand rolled toward his feet. Draco kicked it toward the road.
"Stand in the light where I can see you," he said, advancing to the doorway, his wand extended in front of him. And then the man stepped from the shadows, and Draco nearly dropped his wand in surprise. "It's not - you can't -" he started, shaking his head. Professor Snape. It couldn't be.
"But you're dead," he said, when he found his voice again.
"I imagine I will be shortly," said Snape. His ill humour was written on his scowling face, and for a moment Draco wanted to make a joke or say something flattering, as though he were back in school again, competing for favours with the other students. As though he strained for an approving word or a good mark. "Are you coming in, or shall you just Avada Kedavra me now?"
"For God's sake, Professor, you don't need to be so dramatic." He lowered his wand and stepped inside. "Can we just talk a moment? I don't suppose you have any brandy."
"I'm no longer a professor, as well you know," snapped the other man as he closed the door. "And presumably the Dark Lord will not take too kindly to the news that I am, at the moment, not dead."
"If he finds out." Draco looked around the small room. It was tidy but not luxurious. Potions ingredients and a cauldron shared space on the narrow sideboard with a teapot and cups; a fire crackled in the fireplace, which he doubted was on the Floo Network. And there was Snape. Amazing. Not dead, after all.
Still the same erect bearing, still the same fixed sneer that always made Draco want to scramble for approval, to soften that expression into one of Snape's rare smiles. Perhaps the lines on his face were etched a fraction deeper than they'd been, and his hair was longer, tied back with a bit of leather, but otherwise he looked as though he could have been back in the classroom, barking orders and taking points. Alive. Alive.
Snape faced him squarely. "What will buy your silence?"
Draco smiled. "For you to tell me about it." He gestured around the room. "How did you survive? What really happened in that battle? You took the curse meant for Potter - not that it helped him in the end, poor sod, but -"
"I will take my secrets to the grave." Which it was clear he believed was imminent, the bloody bastard. Draco sighed.
"Look, the last time I saw you, you were in the grave. Convince me that this is really you, and maybe I'll give back your wand. I'm not your enemy, Prof- Mr Snape."
"That remains to be seen," Snape said darkly.
"You were my favourite teacher. We always got on, didn't we? I admired you."
Snape glared and advanced on him; surreptitiously, Draco tightened his grip on his wand and took a step back. The man could still overpower him physically, if Draco let him.
"You admired me." His voice dripped scorn. "Then why did you ignore what I tried to teach you? Why did you ally yourself with him?"
Draco laughed. That was a simple question, with a very simple answer. He met Snape's eyes. "Because he won."
Hogwarts had not been caught unprepared; neither had Draco. His father had owled him a charm to place around his neck, a marker to alert the Death Eaters that he was not to be harmed. The charms were small and discreet but Draco had seen them on several other students, not just Slytherins but Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs as well. Perhaps there was even a marked Gryffindor or two, but Draco had never been close enough to a Gryffindor to see.
Aurors and Hit Wizards roamed the grounds; Potter, who for some reason was considered a special target, even had a bodyguard. Most of the time they stayed out of the way, practically invisible, but he always noticed them around the Quidditch pitch and at meals in the Great Hall. Though they were not as spooky as the Dementors had been, back in third year, it was a bit unnerving to see these armed and vigilant men and women scanning the sky. It reminded him that they were all but at war, and that was the most unsettling thought of all.
None of them, though, had been given any inkling of the date set for the attack. He supposed that was sensible, as any one of them could be a spy. Like Professor Snape, who his father told him had once stood among the Death Eaters but now was Dumbledore's trusted ally. The Dark Lord would take his vengeance, Draco knew, and that bothered him. Sometimes it seemed as though Snape was the only teacher that cared about him. Let Potter so much as fart and everyone came running, but if something happened to a Slytherin, nobody cared except Professor Snape.
When the gargoyles sounded the alarm he had been in Transfiguration class. Professor McGonagall had briskly shepherded them down to the dungeon rooms that had been designated as a safe zone, and Draco had wondered if she resented having to take Slytherins to safety. As they passed the door to the Potions classroom he saw Professor Snape and Potter turning to go in the other direction, and he'd slipped out of the group to follow. Couldn't let that Gryffindor prig steal all the glory, could he?
He'd kept to the shadows as they'd hurried up to the entrance hall, then turned to watch through an arched window where masked figures, dozens of them, battled with Aurors and teachers. All stopped and turned when Snape and Potter stepped outside.
Draco had been taken aback for a moment. Professor Snape had made no secret of his allegiance to Dumbledore and the Ministry; he'd told him and other Slytherins that the Dark Lord was a power-hungry madman, even though he knew that it would likely be repeated from son to Death Eater father, and from him to Voldemort himself. Was Snape a secret Death Eater, and turning Potter over as a prize?
Then Voldemort laughed and pointed his wand, and the curse came sizzling toward the steps, and Snape threw himself in front of Potter, casting his own curse as he went down. And Draco ran, gasping and sobbing, all the way to the dungeons.
"As it turned out, that was not me. A Hit Wizard used Polyjuice to assume my form."
Draco raised his eyebrows and took another sip of the whisky that he'd finally coaxed Snape into producing. Of course he'd been cautious, and not tasted it until Snape had first taken a swallow. "Why wasn't it you?"
Snape rolled his glass between his hands; he'd barely drunk any since that first sip. "I had other things to do."
"And they were?"
"Do you think me a fool, to spill my secrets to the Dark Lord's agent?" He laughed bitterly. "Even the fact that I'm alive is secret enough. He'll be pleased when you bring him my head on a pike, but that will be all you can give him from me."
"No," said Draco. "When I opened the door, and it was you…" He trailed off, shaking his head in wonderment. "Still alive. You can't believe how happy I am to see you."
"And how disappointed I am to see you," said Snape, crossing to the cluttered table. He lifted the open bottle of whisky, then seemed to notice his glass was still full and put it back down. His fingers fluttered first over a ladle, then a spool of thread; finally he picked up a shallow bowl filled with what appeared to be beetle shells, and glared at it. "I had hoped you would choose a different path."
"I didn't exactly choose it. It just happened."
He replaced the bowl on the table and ran his hand lightly across the piled utensils. "Yes. It takes strength to choose your destiny, rather than allowing it to choose you. And you've never been very strong, have you."
Draco flushed. "Now wait --"
But Snape was already whirling at him, a wand suddenly in his hand. "Legilimens!"
Gasping, Draco dropped to his knees, his own wand dropping from limp fingers along with the whisky glass. The rude cottage receded as images flooded his mind. Sitting in class, bored. Clutching his broom in envy and frustration, as Potter swooped in ahead of him to grab the Snitch. His father presenting him to the Dark Lord.
Control was the key, he knew from his Defence Against the Dark Arts training, but control eluded him as memories were teased out of his head. He dimly recognized that Snape was not randomly plucking thoughts but following threads of memory, sifting deliberately, searching for something.
"I'm not," he managed to rasp out. "Not a threat. Always wanted." He tried to bring his jumbled thoughts into some kind of order. Control. He focused on the summer of his fifth year, when his father was taken to Azkaban, on the fantasies he'd spun alone in his room. Fantasies of Snape, inviting him to live with him, taking him away from the manor house and the hollow echoes of his mother's endless worried pacing.
"You see me as a father figure. How touching," said Snape, looming above him, sneering.
"Not that," he mumbled, but Snape had already begun to slide through his thoughts again, following from one related image to another. Draco, defending Snape to a derisive Pansy. Earnestly explaining to Snape how Potions enthralled him. Slipping one of Snape's cravats into his pocket during a meeting in his rooms. Winding that cravat around his cock as he silently rubbed himself behind the privacy of his bedcurtains.
It was all bound up together in his mind somehow, Snape and security and sex. Nothing he could explain in words. But Snape was methodically laying it bare, one memory, one fantasy at a time, things Draco had never expected anyone to know or to see.
"Interesting," murmured Snape.
"Not that either," Draco said desperately, but he could not stop the images, could not stop Snape from seeing the things he thought about when he watched Snape's robes flare around his ankles as he strode down the corridor, the tears that he tried to hold back at the gravesite ceremony. But abruptly his mind was released and he was pressed against the sofa, Snape's weight bearing down on him, those same robes flaring about his own ankles as he stumbled and fell into the soft warm cushions.
"I had wondered," breathed Snape in his ear, between kisses. Kisses that Draco had not thought about other than in a sort of abstract way, because they would never actually happen, except they were happening right now and he could do nothing other than succumb. "I have always wanted you."
Draco looked up helplessly at the dark eyes, burning with desire. What could he say? He had run this scene, or one like it, through his head a million times, but had never expected it would ever play out in life. And with Snape dead…except that he wasn't dead, he was sliding his hands into Draco's robes, undoing clasps and letting the fabric slide to the floor. It was easier to give himself up to the moment than it was to think about it; relaxing into the sofa he allowed his own hands to explore Snape's back and thighs, his head to loll and his mouth to open to Snape's insistent tongue.
It felt good, being enveloped in concern and desire. Like coming from the gloomy rain outside into a well-warmed cottage, like the burn of whisky that spreads from throat to stomach to limbs. Snape's lips trailed down his throat to his stomach just the same way, igniting his skin, and Draco found himself moaning, thrusting up toward that mouth, reaching for the slim hips that pushed against him, loosing Snape's cock from his robes just before Snape slid down his legs, out of reach.
"Yes," said Snape, and then again, "Yes, yes," his mouth shaping the words against Draco's thigh, against his erection. As Snape engulfed him Draco's hands found and tightened on tense shoulders, his body alive with sensation: the thick length of Snape's cock rubbing against his legs, Snape's chest pulsing against his thighs with the steady rhythm of his harsh breathing, Snape's lips and teeth and tongue. It was all so unreal and at the same time so perfectly visceral that it seemed as though he could sense every individual hair on Snape's head brushing against his bare stomach, a suddenly unbearable stimulus, and with a shout he came hard, shaking, barely noticing the wet warmth cascading over his legs as Snape shuddered his own climax against him.
They sat perfectly still for a long minute, the only movement the rise and fall of their chests. Snape's face was still pressed into Draco's groin, his face turned to the side; Draco could feel the stickiness of his own come pooling on his thigh, Snape's come on his legs, an intimate glue holding them together for the moment. Then slowly Snape lifted his head to look at Draco.
The eyes that had burned into him now looked bleak, fathomless. No comfort or affection there, thought Draco. He remembered, uneasily, that Snape still had a wand. And he didn't.
"You have no reason to…to kill me." Despite his best efforts his voice wavered, and he was relieved when Snape smiled faintly and shook his head. With slightly more assurance, he continued: "Nor to Obliviate me. I want to remember this." He forced a cocky smile.
Snape's return smile was grim. "And I want you to remember, as well." He stood, and cool air chilled Draco's damp skin, quickly dispelling the warmth where Snape's body had rested against it; Draco gathered his robes around himself again, trying to ignore the sticky unpleasant feeling. Snape bent to pick Draco's wand up from the floor, but did not offer it to him. "But now you must go."
"All right," said Draco, slowly. "I won't mark you on the scroll, you know."
"I know."
Snape stood immovable, implacable; finally Draco stood and moved tentatively toward the door.
"My primary wand, I assume, is still outside where you kicked it. If you retrieve it for me, I shall return yours."
"All right." The last traces of the heat of the whisky and sex vanished as he stepped out into the chill night; if anything, it was raining even harder. With no wand to cast a protective shield charm he was immediately drenched as he left the shelter of the eaves. Snape's wand was hard to spot in the darkness, but eventually he discovered it half-hidden in the grass by the verge of the road.
As his fingers wrapped around it, it occurred to him that he could use it. Not as well as his own, but it would be better than a quill, at least. But what would he do, hex Snape? He could possibly disable him - but then what? Bring him to Lord Voldemort, and certain painful death? He couldn't do that. He wouldn't.
There was nothing to gain; Snape had as good as assured him he was safe, and he knew enough about the man, or so he thought, to know his word was good. Although the empty yet calculating glance that Snape had given him was troubling. But he had nothing to gain by attacking, and nothing to lose by acceding.
Holding Snape's wand by the tip, the accepted gesture of surrender, he returned to the closed door. The door opened just a fraction at his knock, the same wand-width sliver it had opened when he'd first knocked, a seeming age ago.
He slid the handle end of Snape's wand through the slot, and his own wand poked back at him in return. Each man grasped his own wand simultaneously and pulled it to him. Draco stepped up to the tiny crack of light pouring from inside the cottage, peered in, trying to see Snape. "Do you think --"
"Good-bye, Draco." The door closed decisively. Draco looked at it for a long moment before striding off into the rain.
Three days later, Draco returned to the cottage. It was every bit the ruin the Muggles of the village had described; the door stood open under the half-collapsed roof. The complex system of spells that had hidden the cottage had been dismantled. Nothing remained of the fire, the sofa, Snape. Nothing, save a broken bowl by the hearth that might have once contained beetle shells.
Draco scooped up the shards and put them in his pocket, then Apparated back to Wiltshire.
Writing reports was Draco's least favourite part of his job. At the moment he was trying to sum up his Birmingham field expedition, a painful task made more difficult by the undercurrents sweeping through the office. It was impossible to concentrate. The office - the whole New Ministry - seemed aflutter with rumour, whispers and murmurs floating through the air with the more prosaic memos and instructions. Finally he gave up; stuffing the parchment into one of the pigeonholes of his desk, he went looking for their source.
He found it on the table in the conference room: a copy of the New Oracle, the newspaper that had replaced the Daily Prophet when Lord Voldemort had taken over the Ministry. It wasn't on the front page - they wouldn't dare - but tucked away discreetly inside, between an advertisement for Maura's Sparkle Charms and an article on a Bludger manufacturing firm. Ministry Spokesman Denies Potter Rumours.
Snape had said that hadn't been him. Of course. It hadn't been Potter, either.
By coincidence - or so Draco thought at first - the by-line on the Potter article was a name he knew from school. But when Theo Nott sent him an owl a week later, asking for an interview on the interim figures the Census Office had just released, he realised it was no coincidence at all. He was a field officer, not a desk manager. There was no reason for the New Oracle to take any interest in him. But of course he'd be available for an interview, he replied.
He hadn't seen Theo for nearly two years, not since Hogwarts was attacked and the world turned upside down and shaken. He was still tall and skinny, with a quill tucked behind an ear and his clothes a bit dishevelled; they shook hands and made small talk as Draco led them to a conference room.
At the door, Theo paused. "You know, I've had enough of closed-in rooms today. Any chance we might just take a stroll while we talk? Or I'll treat you to a coffee at Fortescue's?"
"All right," said Draco, closing the door again. "Let me grab my coat." Curiouser and curiouser, he thought. Theo had been in Slytherin as well.
Over coffee Draco explained the official document as best he could. How many Pureblood witches and wizards lived in each district, where the Muggleborn seemed to be concentrated, and so on. "Although of course I'm not privy to the raw numbers from any division other than my own."
"The New Ministry are wise to keep those figures close," agreed Theo. "Could be valuable information for the opposition."
Draco looked up sharply, but Theo's expression was guileless, his clear eyes bland and open. "I suppose," he said, slowly. "And you believe there's still some opposition, I take it. I read your article last week."
"There are rumours."
"But no facts?"
"Of course not." Theo smiled thinly. "A journalist never reveals his sources. But I imagine one could make something of the timing. Potter seen on the Continent after having been thought dead for years. Mark my words, there's a storm gathering."
They sipped from their cups in the silence for a few moments. Finally Draco sighed and put his cup down. "If by chance I come across any interesting data, I suppose I can reach you at the New Oracle?"
"Just send an owl and we'll meet here. Too many eyes on the mails and the Floo. Wouldn't want you to lose your job."
Draco nodded. Despite Theo's matter-of-fact tone, that had been a warning. He had more to lose than merely his job. "Lucky break you approached me, then."
"A journalist never reveals his sources," Theo repeated, standing as he dug in his pocket. "I'll get this. Newspaper expense." He sorted through the Sickles and Knuts and placed some money on the table, then plucked something out of his handful of change and reached over to Draco. "Oh, and for you," he said, closing Draco's fingers firmly around something sharp-edged and cool. His smile as he left was genuine, and perhaps, Draco thought, a bit sad.
He didn't need to look at the object in his hand to know what it was. It would fit the reconstructed bowl that sat on a shelf in his flat, in one of the empty spaces that had been left when he'd put it back together. Although even with the piece in his hand, the bowl would still be incomplete. He wondered, briefly, what had become of the others. Perhaps one would be made into a Portkey and sent to him, when the time came.
He slipped the ceramic shard into his pocket, and headed out into the light rain.
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http://hierolgyfics.net/hp/storm.htm | written August 2004 by Isis
