Chapter 4
5.
Diggory’s fame is nothing, now that Sirius Black has broken into the castle. Gryffindor's even more annoying answer to Pansy, Lavender Brown, spends all the morning after, from the moment they’re woken from the sleeping bags Dumbledore had conjured on the Great Hall floor—the floor!—on through class and lunch and dinner and beyond—telling everyone who will listen to keep an eye on Potter: First the dementors, now this—and Professor Trelawney read him the Grim—
Brown’s a twit, but then, aren’t all of Gryffindor’s purebloods? Black couldn’t have been after Potter. If he were, why would he go to Gryffindor Tower? If he’s been sighted half as many places as people have claimed (and wasn't he in Manchester last anyone saw him?) he has to have had access to the papers—you can’t walk down the street in Hogsmeade without spotting the Prophet for sale in five different places, can you? All the ridiculousness when Potter was first sorted (Skeeter barely disguising articles as general speculation about the tradition of houses and the supposedly failing magic of the Sorting Hat) aside, Monday's article put Potter very clearly in Ravenclaw Quidditch robes on the front page, so obvious you wouldn’t need to be able to read to recognize it. It can’t be entirely unrelated, either, simply can't. The Prophet running the story about the quidditch match must have forced the Ministry to adjust where they hadn’t at Halloween, pulling the dementors back to a wider perimeter from the castle. Some change that left a gap in security that Black could breach.
On the other hand, since Weasley’s the one who'd woken up to Black standing over him with a knife, maybe he intended to take Weasley captive, in order to lure Potter out. Potter’s looked even worse than usual since the Quidditch match, grey-faced and tight-lipped, with bruise-like shadows under his eyes. He’s clearly got some sort of hero complex, if his stunts saving first Longbottom, then Granger are anything to—
“Potter didn’t save Granger,” Severus growls, breaking through Draco’s speculation. “When you’re done with that, you can start on the sopophorous beans.”
It’s Friday evening, and the first sign Severus has given that he’s even listening. Draco hadn’t expected he would, really, when he came knocking on the door, offering his assistance with the evening’s brewing; he’s spent more than enough time with Severus over the years to be used to one-sided conversations.
“Well,” Draco asks, “Why else would Black go after Weasley? He’s not worth anything, on his own.”
Severus grunts. Still listening, then.
“Mother says Black was a Gryffindor, so perhaps he simply doesn’t know how to access Ravenclaw Tower,” Draco muses, tapping the bowl of wormwood he’s shredded with his wand, filling it with a aguamenti charm, and pushing it to rest closer to the flames Severus is working at to allow it time to steep. “Or perhaps he just wanted to see his old dormitory—I think it's rather strange, don’t you? A Gryffindor, in the Dark Lord’s service?”
Severus doesn’t respond to that at all. But then, he wouldn’t. Severus has tighter lips than anyone regarding the war. If Father hadn’t once gotten so drunk he’d said it outright, unaware that Draco had been around the door to overhear, Draco would never have been able to confirm whether Severus had even been in the country during the war, let alone a Death Eater. No one says so directly, of course, and it would take a near-fatal level of intoxication for Father to mistake repeating such sensitive information again, but Draco has spent enough time observing his parents’ associates to tell the difference for most of them. And enough time around Severus to know if he ever says what he knows out loud, he'll be obliviated in a heartbeat.
“She said you knew him, when he was in school. Him and Lupin.”
“Did she.”
“She did. She said they were friends, but you would know more about that than her.”
Severus flicks his wand, and the box of tangled bean stalks lifts itself up from the workbench near the supply closet and settles heavily in front of Draco. The bowl, he passes over by hand.
“She actually wrote that,” Draco presses, accepting it. “Mother did. I got a letter this morning. She wrote that I should ask you whether or not Lupin might be involved in all of this. And since you knew them…”
“Your mother,” Severus informs him, “is a vile bitch who likes to dig her claws into people just to see if they’ll bleed. You can either shell those or get out.”
And has she made you bleed, telling me to ask that? Draco wonders, but does not ask. He reaches into the box and snaps off a pod, prying it open and pushing his thumb into and up the seam to pop the beans from their casing.
“Don’t let those bruise.”
“I’m not a child, Severus.” Honestly, sometimes it’s as though he forgets he’s let Draco into his lab for years.
Despite those many years, Draco’s not sure what to make of Severus’s non-answer. No, Draco wouldn’t put it past Mother to use him to get at Severus, but unless he had misread her carefully worded comments on the matter, she was more suggesting that Severus might have something to do with Black than that Lupin might. From what he's seen of Lupin, he hasn't a single ounce of the strength he'd need to become a Death Eater, much less the conviction. And while anyone with eyes and five minutes in the same room can see how little Severus appreciates Lupin, well, Severus doesn’t appreciate anyone, so it would be more strange if he had looked at some raggedy newcomer fondly.
And Severus hasn’t denied knowing Black—or Lupin, for that matter—and, well, he’s right. Mother wouldn’t encourage Draco to speak with him unless it was to try to hurt him. Which means there’s something there that might make Severus hurt. And seeing as Severus was a Death Eater…
But as Mother had written before: Black had been in Azkaban for, what was it, thirteen years? Whatever he might have thought before, there’s bound to be some resentment, knowing that Severus—and Father, and God knows how many others—had retained freedom for the duration.
“Maybe Black doesn’t want to kill Potter,” Draco says, watching Severus carefully. “Mother suspects his motives. She says it would’ve been wiser to go after Potter before he got to the school. He must have been terribly well protected, wherever he was, don’t you think?”
“I haven’t the slightest.”
Extremely well protected, then; Severus knows everything. Father says Severus could find any secret, given enough time, and thus it was prudent not to ever let him know you had any. So either he didn’t know, or he couldn’t say.
“Well, obviously Potter’s not like anyone expected—”
“Thank God,” he thinks he hears Severus mutter.
“—so maybe Black doesn’t think he’s worth the time.”
No comment.
“I mean, he fainted,” Draco presses. “He actually fainted on his broom. He would’ve died before the dementors could get him, he would have—”
“I didn’t notice,” Severus says. “You were screaming so loud, we were covering our ears in the staff box.”
That’s just an outright lie. It had been Daphne screaming, not him. Daphne and just about everyone else. And even if he had, and even if it had just been him, between the rain and the wind and the distance and the crowds—
“What’s he got on you, then?” Draco wants to know. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say it sounds like you actually like Potter.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“But you don’t like anyone.”
“No,” Severus agrees, pointing his knife towards Draco’s face. “And if you don’t pay more attention to what you’re doing, I don’t care how many toys your father provides for you, I’ll have you banned from ever brewing again while you’re here at Hogwarts.”
He’s joking—probably. When Draco was seven, Severus had threatened to poison Draco if he didn’t brew the potion Father had called Severus out to supervise correctly, and Draco had been more interested in calling the bluff than redoing a potion he’d already brewed without supervision three times. He’d gone to bed that night halfway disappointed that Severus had done nothing but comment on the failure and leave, but then he’d been so ill he’d barely been able to eat for a week. Mother had informed Draco he must live with the consequences of his choices, and Father had, over a dinner event that Draco had been required to attend despite being ill, delivered a lecture on taking for granted the gifts he was given, so merciless in his denunciation that Draco was half certain the German ambassador was going to recommend him for a cell in Nurmengard.
Still, one of them must have caved, as he woke up in the middle of the night and found Severus standing over his bed, a crystal vial of antidote in hand. Delirious as he'd been, by then, the memory is embedded like a shard of jagged glass in his memory. “Don’t,” Severus had said, “waste my time again.”
Mother says it is a blessing for everyone that Severus has never shown the slightest hint of interest in procreation. Especially, Draco frequently thinks, for the would-be child.
Either way, Draco huffs and watches his hands, gently prying the beans from the pods. “Father doesn’t give me toys,” he mutters.
“If you think I didn’t submit a nearly doubled budget this year, knowing he would be voting on approvals with your education in mind, you would be sorely mistaken.”
This would not, Draco supposes, be the time to discuss a spot on the team. Nor to comment that it was more likely Father was giving Severus toys, eager, as always, to see what Severus would do when given resources beyond his usual means. Severus had the misfortune of being a half-blood at the end of a very old, now extinct pureblood line, beneficiary to his ancestor’s magical brilliance but none of the grace nor wealth. Or so Mother had told him, when Draco was young and unsure as to why his father’s most interesting friend was not on any of the family trees in the library. She had not told him which line; regardless of what little of the old blood had carried on in him, he was nothing but a half-blood, and thus would never be rightfully associated with a pureblood name. Father pities Severus, she says, and if every man has a vice, then just as well that his might be patronage to a half-blood genius, foul of tongue, blood, and appearance that he might be.
“Mother says that Dumbledore milked the Minister for what it’s worth, allowing the dementors here,” Draco says. “Which is supposedly for Potter’s sake. I suppose that’s why all you Professors are so in love with him, if he’s the reason your budgets have improved.”
“Oh, yes,” Severus replies sourly. “Soul-sucking prison guards around the castle, a murderer waking the school up in the middle of the night. Aurors rifling through classrooms rather than doing whatever it is our taxes pay them to do. I can hardly contain my gratitude to the Harry Potter for such a thrilling opportunity.”
Aurors? They were in the castle earlier in the week, searching, according to Dumbledore’s announcement, high and low for whatever weakness Black might have exploited to get in. There’d been some comments made about the dungeons, sure; they are vast and unplottable, after all, stretching out under the lake to depths unknown, and every year, supposedly, the ghosts have to be sent to try and retrieve some Gryffindor or Ravenclaw foolish enough to take up a dare to go searching for the Chamber of Secrets or some other mystery. So there had been plenty of aurors around near Slytherin, with an excuse to cover their blatant prejudices, but Dumbledore’s announcement had also included a pointedly worded promise that the aurors would not be interfering with anyone’s daily life, and they’d gone again without fanfare.
“Did they give you trouble?” Draco demands. “Father will deal with them, if they have.”
He’d had one outright fired and two moved to desk positions, following the World Cup, when they’d tried a raid on the Manor. Of course, Father was willing, as he ever was, for the aurors to search the Manor. Anything that might be politically damning has long since been sealed where only Malfoy blood might get to it, and raids always provide Father with a chance to cull any of those who believe they are above Father’s legal innocence.
But Severus gives him an odd look. “Malfoys,” he mutters after a moment. “Always trying to solve problems by throwing galleons at them.”
“Father has other means than galleons,” Draco scoffs.
“Indeed.”
But he doesn’t answer Draco about the aurors, which is just typical, isn’t it? Draco imagines, briefly, grabbing one of the beans and squeezing it, just so that it pops out from between his fingers and, being a sopophorous bean, bounces around the lab, too small for Severus to stop with a spell, but certainly large enough to give the man an ulcer. But there’s a chance it might land in a cauldron, and Severus is still testy about the business with Granger, so introducing an unintended ingredient to whichever of the brews he has stewing around the laboratory it landed in, as interesting as the results may be, would doubtless get him booted from the room.
“Well, regardless of the investigation, I suppose, all you Professors practically swoon whenever Potter walks into the room,” Draco says instead. “If it were anyone else, do you think a first-year would have been allowed onto the team so easily?”
“A permission many are regretting, I’m sure.”
Severus does sound satisfied about that, though that more suggests he has issues with his fellow Professors than with Potter.
“He hardly deserves it,” Draco presses. “Flitwick must have waived the flying lesson requirement, and supposedly his stunt with Longbottom was his first time on a broom. His first time! Can you believe that?”
“I fail to see why I should care.”
“Because it is clearly favoritism. Flitwick gives him points for opening the book, I swear. Trelawny practically died the first time we had Divination for Electives; he’s her favorite to read on. And Lupin— I’m sure you would know all about what Lupin thinks, if you were such good friends with him, back in the day.”
“You have reached a summit of idiocy previously presumed unscalable. Congratulations.”
“So you weren’t friends, then?”
Severus doesn’t dignify that with an answer, either.
“Well,” says Draco. “Blaise said—" (To Daphne, but it wasn't like Draco had been trying to eavesdrop or anything!) "—that he heard Potter was getting special extra lessons from Lupin. I don’t see him offering anyone else extra time.”
“Yes, what blatant favoritism,” Severus drawls.
“I am assisting you!”
“Are you?” Severus mutters. “You appear more to be dawdling and being a pest.”
“As if you could ever be distracted,” Draco mutters. “And Potter is definitely not assisting Lupin in his work. I saw them leaving the castle together before dinner, again, to go walk down by the lake, or wherever it is they go—”
Whatever he’s said, it must have been the wrong thing. Perhaps he’s pushed too far, or perhaps Severus’s patience has simply waned, and whatever has kept him lingering here has run out. Or perhaps he has simply reached the end of what work he had set aside for the evening; he has not yet had dinner, Draco knows, as he had come directly to the lab from the Great Hall. In any case, he sets down his knife and leans heavily on the table for a moment, a clear moment of pause, and then turns sharply on heel.
“Clean that up, and go back to your dorm, Draco,” he says sharply, flicking his wand and summoning a vial of something straight to his hand from the cupboard by the door. “Whatever your petty quarrel with your peers, you would be better served wasting their time than mind, if you know what’s good for you.”
“Petty quarrel—”
But Severus is already gone, the laboratory door swinging heavily shut behind him.
Were the circumstances any different, it would have only been just for Draco to leave Severus some sort of surprise for his return. Leaving the bowls of ingredients he has been preparing empty and sparkling clean, perhaps. Alas. At the moment, Severus is the only reliably tolerable person in the castle, and no matter what Severus says, he is not going to waste his time or energy on dealing with the idiots he has to suffer as housemates.
So he finishes shelling the beans, cleans the entire workstation—including the materials that Severus left out—and peers into the various cauldrons around the lab, identifying common pain potions and stomach soothers, the sort of thing Mother keeps in her bathroom cabinet, before finally acknowledging that Severus will not be coming back. It is still quite early, just after seven, and it is a Friday evening, so after a brief debate, Draco turns to make his way up to the library. He can surely find something entertaining to read, and there’s always a chance that Blaise is up with some Ravenclaws or upperclassmen, getting away from the girls, and Crabbe and Goyle definitely won’t be anywhere near a room full of books, and if Pansy’s there, at least she cannot shriek. He passes others on the way, wandering the castle or making their way to their common rooms as the serving window for dinner in the Great Hall comes to a close, and can’t help but notice how not a single one of them is out alone, and not a single one of them more than glances his way.
Maybe Severus is right. Strange as it might be to take social advice from a man so unbothered by alienating any and everyone, he knows Draco well. Better than anyone, really, except perhaps some of the elves at the manor, but they hardly count. Draco has never cared for being alone; he would, as a young boy, often get in trouble for dragging house elves along on his adventures out onto the grounds, and if he was caught was made to watch as the elves punished themselves for not completing their duties, before he was treated to pain in kind. That was a lesser punishment to the one Father came to favor as he grew older, which was to lock him in his room without so much as a portrait to converse with, where Draco could be forgotten. The longest punishment, for interrupting a business meeting between Father an ambassador from the French Ministry, had lasted six days, until Mother’d had a garden party to attend, and she did so enjoy bringing Draco along to her social events, in his younger years. So well-behaved, the ladies would say, so long as he was silent, and he would keep his fidgeting to the tips of his toes, where Mother couldn’t see it.
It hasn’t quite been six days of total seclusion, just yet, since Daphne's back to cheerfully saying 'good morning' when he sits down for breakfast, but he hasn’t spoken directly to Blaise or even Pansy since Tuesday after the break-in, and Severus, well… talking to him doesn’t quite satisfy the way talking to people his age does. So maybe he ought to… swallow his misgivings, try a little bit harder to tolerate the others, and… and maybe then he might be able to honestly call them his friends...
How bloody Hufflepuff he sounds! He has standards, damn it, and it’s not his fault if his housemates can’t reach them. He stalks toward the library, fully intending to spend the evening in elective solitude, and is just coming around the corner of the hall the grand staircase deposited him at when he hears—
“—complaining about—look for—”
“—not making—free to go—upstairs—”
He knows those voices. The first more than the second: Draco only wishes he could forget Granger’s voice. They’re not in sight yet, so he advances, cautiously, casually enough that if they were to come around the corner he’d not look out of place.
“—course I want to help, I’m just—awfully duplicitous, isn’t it, to go on so negatively—around and act like you’ve cared all along. Does he treat his family like that, too? Isn’t that awfully cold?”
“—different from family, Hermione.”
“Is it?”
“—last week—convenient—Prophet didn’t report on Black coming here—didn’t see an article and—”
“I meant that I didn’t want to worry them! They read the paper and get so… Doesn’t your family?”
There’s a long stretch of silence, as Draco reaches the point where the halls intersect. He leans just so, peering around until he catches sight of Potter and Granger’s reflections in a suit of armor. They’re down by the statue of the one-eyed witch, Potter with his head stuck around behind it, Granger standing off with her arms folded over her chest. Looking for something, clearly, though Draco’s a bit too far away to have heard everything clearly. He heard Black’s name—are they looking for him? Black did, supposedly, lead to Potter’s parents’ deaths, betraying them to the Dark Lord; everyone with a history book knows that. If Potter wants revenge, is seeking him out… Oh, Draco would pay good money to see that confrontation. Potter up against a dark wizard, ha! He wouldn’t stand a chance.
“When exactly did Dean see him here, anyway?” Granger asks.
“He just said this morning.”
This morning? On the other hand, if it is Black, they’re all bloody mental, Christ—
“Well, unless…” There’s another pause. Potter straightens up from behind the statue, the curve of the armor making his reflection tall and narrow, and Granger sighs. “There has to be some sort of spell he can use to track him down…”
“Didn’t Flitwick say we’re doing summoning charms at the end of the year?”
“Oh, of course—Accio Scabbers!”
What in God’s name is a ‘scabbers’?
Nothing—assuming the spell even took. As Mother says, Granger can study all the books in the world, but she'll still be—
“Oh, I'm ridiculous,” Granger groans. “That one doesn’t work on living things. I’m sure there’s probably… other spells for that.”
“Let's check the library,” Potter says after a moment.
“Fine, but… Not to be cynical, but I think we’d better bring up with Ron the possibility that it was a different rat, and Scabbers got himself eaten by someone else’s pet.”
Oh, by Merlin’s beard—that mangy old rat Weasley is always carrying around? That’s what they’re looking for?
“Ron’s not going to like that.”
“Well, then, I don’t know, maybe he went peacefully, in his sleep. Didn’t Ron say he’d been in the family for thirteen years? Normal rats don’t just live that long. Maybe being around magic helped, but…” Granger trails off. “Either way, he’s not here. Can we be done?”
And then there’s footsteps, coming towards him. Draco peels away from the wall, shifting back a few steps, and starts walking forward and precisely the moment to run square into Granger, passing by the corner. She immediately begins apologize, even as she reaches out to try and steady him—and cuts off as she freezes, catching sight of his face.
“For God’s sake, Granger,” Draco says, rubbing his arm. “Can’t you look where you’re going?”
“Sorry,” she says stiffly. “What are you doing, skulking around corners, anyways?”
“As if it’s any business of yours where I go in my free time,” Draco replies. "Though I might ask the same."
"As if it's any business—"
"We're looking for Ron's pet rat," Potter cuts in. "Yea big, really old and beat-up looking, missing a toe—"
"Harry!" Granger cuts in, scandalized.
"What?" Potter asks. "He is old. Looks like he's been—"
"It's none of Malfoy's business!" she hisses.
Potter rolls his eyes. "You seen it?"
"A rat? In the castle?" Draco asks. "I can only hope someone dealt with that vermin."
"See!"
"Keep an eye out," Potter says.
Draco narrows his eyes. "If I see it, who's to say I won't curse it first thing?"
"Harry—"
"You don't like getting your hands dirty," Potter says. "Crabbe and Goyle might do it for you, but I think Scabbers could outrun them. And it's not as though you actually like them."
Cards well-played. Agreeing is out of the question, but denying—suggesting he does like the great buffoons—would saddle him with living up to that expectation.
That's what makes going after Potter in equal terms frustrating and interesting, at least when Draco's not being dragged down by idiots. There's a brain somewhere under that bird's nest of hair. If he weren't the boy-who-lived, Draco might've even have pegged his hat stall as being a consideration of Slytherin, but everyone knows it was Gryffindor. Pity.
“You’re right,” Draco decides. “I wouldn’t waste my time; I’d send the house elves to deal with it. Have you ever seen a house elf that thinks its home is being infested?”
Apparently not, because Potter just nods and says, “I’m sure they’d get him back to Ron. But if you don’t want to go through the trouble, just remember you could skip that and tell someone instead.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Harry,” Granger says. “His friends aren’t going to help us any more than he is. You’re wasting your breath, let's go.”
“Maybe I will, maybe I won’t,” Draco replies, just as coolly, almost intent on going and finding the damn rat just to spite her. “You’ll just have to wait and see, won’t you?” And he completes his turn into the corridor, stalking away towards the library with great purpose.
Trouble is, he quickly realizes, Potter and Granger are headed to the same place. They let him get a bit of a head start, but not enough that he can’t hear them whispering, and fill in the indistinct gaps:
“You said you don’t like bullies!”
“I don’t.”
“Then why would—you know the sort of person he is! You’ve seen—he was after you at Hogsmeade!”
“Don’t have to like someone to use them,” Potter says. “We’re looking for a rat in a castle, Hermione. The chances he spots Scabbers are pretty low… and if someone else in Slytherin sees him, he’ll probably hear about it, and then we will.”
“As if he is going to tell us!”
“I don’t think he could resist the chance to taunt Ron. I don’t like bullies, you’re right, but they’re very predictable. Especially bullies who are bored and isolated.”
“Bored and isolated?” Granger hisses, echoing Draco’s mind perfectly. And he's nothing so pathetic as a 'bully'! The nerve—
But when he turns around to give Potter what for, around the corner behind them—where Draco had come from—comes running a mangy grey rat.
Lunging from behind it a moment is Weasley.
“Scabbers!” his cracking voice squeaks. “Come back here—catch him!”
Potter and Granger both lunge for it, and Potter might even have caught it if Granger hadn’t crashed into him, letting the beast slip beneath his fingers and streak off forward towards Draco. Draco jumps back, out of the way—no way he’s letting that filth anywhere near him—it, by luck, keeps running; a beat later Weasley is barrelling by, crying, Scabbers! Scabbers, stop!
As he vanishes, Longbottom appears, panting. “He was—” he heaves. “We saw him—”
He luckily stops before he can sick up, though he follows Weasley as fast as he can, skirting around Draco in a comically wide arc. Potter helps Granger up, and pulls her in the direction they went—towards Draco, which he seems to notice right as he comes in line, and halts in his tracks, considering him with narrowed eyes.
Well, Draco? he seems to say. Bet you're too coward— You don't like getting your hands dirty—
“What?” Draco hisses.
“Harry, come on, don’t waste your time on him—” Granger starts, pulling him, and Potter lets her, though for another moment their eyes stay locked—
What are you waiting for?
But without waiting for an answer, Potter turns and starts running past him. Granger only holds back long enough to deliver a look that says, don’t you dare, before she goes, too.
Draco stares as they dart around the corner out of sight, and then turns, fully intending to make his way to the library. They are all insane, clearly. Of the four of them, only Granger has any sense—what had Potter been thinking, asking him? And what is Draco doing, wasting his time on them? Draco’s made a point of avoiding Potter, knowing Father wouldn’t approve of burning the bridges, knowing Mother would frown on befriending a halfblood, but Potter is friends with Weasley and Granger and Longbottom, and therefore an enemy of Draco’s by default. And he’d been an arse when they had first met, pretending he wasn’t Harry Potter, acting so superior…
But then, Father always says you should let people with power believe the best of you. And Potter certainly does have power in the world, even if he does not know how to use it—and a person who doesn’t know how to use it is so easy to mold into something useful, and—and he isn’t doing anything else with his evening, now that Severus has kicked him out, and… And Potter hadn't said anything, but that look, it hadn't been rejection, it had been a challenge. An invitation.
For a moment there, it had been like Potter didn’t care. It was almost been like he really wanted Draco there.
And—Christ, he’s already running after them, isn’t he?