Where Angels Fear

Where Angels Fear

Chapter 6

Hot Chocolate and Wolfsbane Potion

Downstairs, some Order members not resident in the house were still sitting around the table. Dumbledore wasn't there, but McGonagall was, and Hagrid, and a few adults Draco didn't know.

Some Weasleys--one or the other of the twins, Bill, and Charlie--all started talking at once. Draco couldn't separate their voices until Mrs. Weasley, who had clearly had more practice, silenced them with a glare. Charlie, who was apparently a bit slower to respond than his brothers, said distinctly, "Snape and Snape junior."

Mrs. Weasley rapped his knuckles with her wand, and Draco said, "On balance, I think I'll take that as a compliment."

"As will I," the Professor murmured, and took down a pot from the rack hanging from the ceiling.

"I've told you before, Severus, I'll have no potions-making in my kitchen," Mrs. Weasley said sharply.

"I'm not," the Professor snarled.

Draco wondered if the others realized Snape didn't like them calling him by his given name. Or insulting his potions. He also wondered what they were planning to do when the full moon came around.

The people around the table resumed talking, a little self-consciously. Draco found a place to sit next to the Auror Tonks. She was his cousin, and he had an idea it might not be a bad idea to get to know her.

She was also the only one to bother extending a civil greeting. Unfortunately, it was, "Wotcher, Draco. Did Harry go to bed already?"

He shrugged. "I don't know, I'm not his nurse, am I?"

She shrugged back.

"Snape, are you making hot chocolate?" Lupin asked.

"Shut up," Snape answered.

"Can I have some?"

"Is there some part of 'shut up' that you don't understand?" Snape hissed.

"It's a perfectly civil question."

"I've had about enough of your--"

"Civility, Severus? Tell me, what would you prefer?"

"His nerves are bad," Draco jumped in, before the Professor could answer. The Headmaster had said that about Snape once.

The Professor must've remembered that too. He looked at Draco, almost smiling, and answered, "So are yours," before turning back to the hot chocolate.

"He's just nasty," Fred-or-George said to Lupin, confidentially. "He's always been nasty, he'll always be nasty, don't bother making an effort."

"Mr. Weasley," Professor McGonagall said reprovingly. He went paler than usual and ducked his head. McGonagall got up and said something to Snape, quietly enough that Draco couldn't hear. Snape nodded and answered just as quietly.

Lupin said to no one in particular, "We're all going to be careful how we talk about Snape, particularly in front of Draco. Whether you think it's because they might hex us into next week or not. All right?"

No one really answered.

"It's just his personality," Tonks said, maybe speaking to Draco. He wasn't sure. "We all know he's...we all know how he is. He's just not easy to live with."

"I've never had any trouble," Draco said coldly.

"One of these days you're going to have to let us all in on how you manage that," Tonks said. "Is there some sort of a knack to getting so you can open your mouth without him taking offense?"

There was no way Draco could answer that. If it was just him and Snape, he'd make a joke. If he was going to tell the truth, he'd have to go into their history--how Snape had loved him since Draco had been two days old and drooling on the shoulder of his robes.

Draco couldn't remember back that far, but he thought he had loved the Professor since then, too.

But instead of any of that, he just said, "We get on, is all."

"You don't have to explain yourself to them." Snape slammed a mug of hot chocolate on the table in front of him. He must've put a charm on to keep it from splashing over.

"Thanks." Draco wondered if the others were really as hostile towards them as Snape thought. He didn't quite see it, himself. But the Professor was a Leglimens, and knowing him a good one. Probably he couldn't help knowing that they still disliked him, even when they were trying to be cordial.

Only Draco wasn't sure how long he'd been acting friendly toward Granger and Longbottom before they stopped being the insufferable mudblood and the incompetent little crybaby he talked to because no one else would put up with him. He'd had to act as though he liked them for a long time before he actually did. No one would ever get that chance with Snape, because he insisted on rubbing their noses in the fact they couldn't stand him.

Except it was worse than that, Draco realized suddenly. Earlier that day the Professor had accused Lupin of plotting to humiliate him. That was how his mind worked. If they were being friendly toward him, while he knew perfectly well they didn't really like him, he'd have to think it was part of a scheme to make a fool of him. He wouldn't bother making an effort to be decent to someone he disliked, or trying to get over a grudge.

So there was a knack to it. But probably not one Tonks, or anyone else, could master.

"You have to really like him," Draco said, looking over at the Professor. "That's the knack."

"Oh, well, if that's all," Tonks said, to general laughter.

"Thank you. Draco," Snape said significantly.

He shrugged. "It's a legitimate question."

"Is that what you think?" McGonagall fixed him with a thoughtful eye. "That none of the rest of us like Severus?"

Couldn't she tell Snape had had enough? "It's not what I think about it that matters." He turned to the Professor. "Do you want to go?"

"No. This is fascinating." His eyes glittered darkly.

Well. Draco couldn't exactly drag him out against his will, even though he thought staying was a bad idea.

"Oh yes," Lupin said heavily, "Let's all tiptoe around Severus because he's so much more sensitive than the rest of us. Because it certainly wouldn't be at all reasonable to ask him to just get over himself, would it?"

Draco looked back and forth between them. A moment ago it seemed that Lupin had been sticking up for Snape. If this was the way they flipped back and forth on him, no wonder Snape was so defensive.

"You don't know a thing about it," Snape said fiercely.

"Oh, please. Your exquisite inner pain doesn't make you the least bit special."

"I never said it did!"

"You don't have to," Lupin shot back. "All you have to do is have Dumbledore--or Snape Junior--tell us you can't handle it if we aren't sensitive to your special problems? Hasn't it ever occurred to you that the reason we can't stand you is because you have all the sensitivity of a turnip? No, it's all about you, your monumental case of self-pity, and Draco--who is going to turn out every bit as miserable as you are if we don't find some way to get him away from you, by the way--"

Snape was on his feet reaching for his wand.

Which he couldn't find because Draco, seeing this debacle coming, had summoned it out of the Professor's pocket and tucked it up his own sleeve under the table.

"We've been trying to make you two bastards feel welcome, but it you're not going to meet us halfway, I for one am going to stop trying!" Lupin continued, oblivious to the danger he'd been in.

"You might as well, since I hadn't noticed you trying very hard!"

"Why would we? You've been nothing but trouble ever since we were at school together. Sneaking around, butting in where you weren't wanted, carrying tales to the Headmaster--you haven't changed a bit!"

"Well, if we're going to start reminiscing about our schooldays--" Snape began dangerously.

"Oh, now you're going to play the Sirius-fed-me-to-a-werewolf card!"

"Well he did! And nobody gave a damn!"

"I did! I gave him hell for it!"

"Let me guess. You didn't want to kill me because then you'd really be a monster." Snape's eyes narrowed in intense dislike. "How...noble...of you." His voice was quiet and silky now. He was back in control, which Draco privately thought was even more impressively scary than having him in a spitting rage. "And that's why you don't know anything about it, werewolf. All of you." His eyes swept around the table. "You wrap yourselves in self-righteousness like a cloak, and if you ever bothered to look underneath it you'd--be just as miserable as I am."

"There's the self-pity again," Lupin said tiredly.

"It's not self-pity," Draco said quietly. "He's not too squeamish to take responsibility for what he's done, that's all. And the rest of you are far too easy on yourselves. All of you are too willing to make excuses for yourselves--you didn't know, your intentions were honorable, the greatest good for the greatest number, it was a long time ago, whatever. What you actually do still matters, no matter why you did it. He's killed a lot of people. I'd say that's worth feeling bad about. And the rest of you sat back and let him do it. Enocouraged it. Benefited from it. I'd say that's worth feeling bad about too. I still haven't figured out why you don't seem to care. Why you think it's OK for people to die as long as they're people you don't know or don't like. That's what he doesn't get. Why it was OK for him to kill Nathan Ragier and Claire Lamb and all those others. I don't get it either. We both must have missed that day when they were teaching right and wrong."

Draco became aware that everyone in the room was looking at him like he'd grown another head. Including Snape. "Er," he said. "Anyway. Yeah."

"It's not that it's OK," Tonks said. "None of us think that. It's just that if you think about it too much--well, you'd be miserable, just like he said."

"Well, maybe you should be," Draco answered.

"Who's Claire Lamb?" Lupin asked.

"The last muggle I killed when I was spying," Snape answered wearily. "Entire family disappeared on a motoring holiday in Northhamptonshire. Bodies never found, no one knows what happened to them, according to the muggle papers. Only I know because we killed them all at a Death Eater rally at Ragier Hall."

"Do you keep a...sort of a...really depressing scrapbook?" Fred-or-George asked.

"Something like that." He did. Draco had seen it.

"That's really sick."

"Maybe."

He had told Draco once that he hoped that, if he was called to account for all of the people he'd killed, it would count for something that he had bothered to remember all of their names.

"It doesn't make you better than us," Lupin said.

"It certainly doesn't make me any worse."

There was a moment of silence into which McGonagall said, "Well. I think that's cleared the air a bit."

Snape gave her a withering look and turned to Draco. "Anyway. Can I have my wand back?"

"Oh. Yeah." Draco passed it to him.

Snape applied a heating charm to their cups. "You'd best drink that."

He did. "You didn't put anything in it, did you?"

"You'd know if I had."

"True." He looked around the kitchen. "There's something weird about this house."

"Just the people in it," Snape answered, sipping at his chocolate. "It's been pretty thoroughly swept for Dark artifacts."

"Oh."

"What." Snape was looking at him funny. "Why, do you have a theory?"

"What? No, just guessing." He was a little embarrassed to be taken so seriously.

"You've never seen me shut up in a small, enclosed space with Lupin before. The effects are unpredictable." He traced the grain of the tabletop with his fingers. "I'm sure that's all it is."

"We wondered too," Lupin interrupted. "Last year when Sirius...well, we thought there might be a Hothead Hex on it or something like that. But it's just the house. I guess it has bad associations for...just about everyone."

Snape nodded.

Lupin got up and wandered over to the stove. "Hey--there's some of this chocolate left."

"That's yours," Snape said dryly.

"You could have said something," Lupin complained.

Snape murmured, "Idiot."

Lupin heated his chocolate and sipped at it. "This is really good." He sounded surprised about it. "What's the secret ingredient?"

"Just what are you insinuating?" Snape demanded.

"Professor!" Draco grabbed his arm and hauled him back into his seat. "It's the stirring," he told Lupin.

"Really? What--" Under Snape's glare he looked away and said, "Never mind."

They sipped at their chocolate for a while. Tonks got up and started washing out the pan. Charlie Weasley elbowed Fred-or-George and said, "You'd better go up and say goodnight to mum before you go back to the shop."

"Oh, yeah. I wanted to check on Harry, too..."

The Weasley brothes wandered off. An old woman prodded a disreputable looking man who had somehow slept through Snape and Lupin's entire argument. "Wake up, Mundungus. Time for us to be going."

"Wha'? Oh, well." He shuffled to the fireplace, too the old woman's hand, and they floo'd out.

"Sorry," Lupin said vaguely. "I should have known Dumbledore had a good reason for...."

"It doesn't matter," Snape said flatly.

"You shouldn' feel bad about killin' Nathan Ragier," Hagrid said, his first contribution to the conversation. "He was a bad 'un."

"It's complicated," Draco told the gamekeeper, hoping to stop Snape from answering. It worked; the Professor just nodded into his cup.

"Well," Hagrid said slowly, "if we're clearing' the air, like--" he nodded to McGonagall, "I'm no' necessarily too stupid to understan'. Sir."

Snape raised an eyebrow. "Very well. He was my friend. Or thought he was. And I killed him. It's the height of hypocrisy to believe that we oughtn't to regret killing--bad 'uns." He winced. "It had to be done, but that doesn't make it right. He was somebody's father, and somebody's son." He gestured vaguely. "As Draco said, it's complicated."

"I suppose," Lupin said tentatively. "But still--what's done is done."

"On the contrary," Snape said. "What's done is just beginning. In six years--if we should all live so long--Benjamin Ragier is going to be taking Potions lessons with the man who murdered his father. I've found that when the people closest to you are dead, it's no comfort at all to know that the were killed by the defenders of light."

"So have I," Draco said, thinking of a box in a mausoleum in Wiltshire, and a silver swagger stick with the head of a snake. "I'll talk to him about it," he said, "if you think it'll help."

"We'll see." He looked over at Tonks. "Anyway. I've often wondered if, when you lot are doing arithmetic with people's lives, you remember that for every dead Death Eater there's bound to be an angry young man on a one-way track to Azkaban."

The young Auror turned away from the dishpan. "You'd have to ask Moody," she said, "but I doubt it."

"That's what I thought."

"Having your parents killed by Aurors doesn't make it inevitable that you'll be a Dark wizard," Lupin objected.

"No," Snape said significantly. "Nor does sorting Slytherin, or even knowing a lot of curses before starting school."

"We were just kids, Severus--"

"So was I."

"I don't know what you want me to do about it," Lupin said.

"Neither do I." He leaned back in his chair and shut his eyes. "Ask Dumbledore, if you really want to know," he suggested in a very flat, careful tone. "He's good at that sort of thing."

"Maybe I will."

"Incidentally," McGonagall said tartly, "I don't know where you got the notion, Remus, that we ought to take Draco away from Severus. I assure you--" her eyes flicked over to Draco and Snape"--neither Dumbledore nor I have ever entertained such an idea."

"You'd better not have," Draco said.

"And," McGonagall ignored him, "It's quite late for young people to be out of bed."

"Right." Snape put a hand on his shoulder. "Let's go, then."

"And I'd better make sure George isn't keeping Harry up," Lupin said. "Good night."

#

Severus didn't sleep well that night. He didn't know what he'd been thinking, getting into a screaming row with Remus Lupin, of all people, in front of half the Order. (On the other hand, having provoked the mild-mannered werewolf into screaming back gave him some measure of satisfaction.) And then they'd had a civil conversation. Or something like that. He wasn't sure he felt any better, or hated Lupin any less. He wasn't sure that was the point.

The next few days, Lupin avoided him when he could and was painfully polite when he couldn't. Severus returned the courtesy. Dobby and Sully were installed in the pantry, but Nobs was still being held by the Ministry. The investigation into Finkey's assaults on the Manor proceeded, but Albus "suggested" that they stay at Headquarters. Knowing that Voldemort wouldn't give up on a plan as satisfying as the one he had formed for him and Draco just because it had failed once, Snape had to agree.

Severus himself spent most of his time in the library, reading and sorting through the jumble of books. Draco divided his time between working in the library with him and doing Merlin-knew-what with Potter. Returning from one of these expeditions, he slumped over his textbooks. After a while he said tentatively, "Potter same something weird to me earlier."

Severus stilled, then forced himself to keep writing and ask casually, "What was that?"

"He wanted to know why I always call you 'Professor.'"

"Did he." That wasn't nearly as bad as he'd feared. "I wonder if he's forgotten just what it is I do for a living."

"It's not that. Lupin--Professor Lupin--lets him--Harry--call him by his first name. So he thought it was, well, strange."

So Potter had decided to play my-adults-like-me-better-than-yours-like-you. How...typical. "What did you tell him?"

"That I didn't think you liked your given name much."

"Very good." He almost didn't want to ask, but... "What did he say?"

"That he guessed you didn't." Draco had abandoned all pretense of doing his schoolwork and was looking at Snape.

Very well, then. "Indeed. You're right, I don't like it." He didn't quite feel he could handle a conversation with Draco, much less with Potter, about why he didn't like it.

"That's what I thought."

"I know." So could they stop talking about it?

"I don't know why Potter brought it up."

Apparently not. "Occasionally I wonder if the Dark Lord left him alive just to be a thorn in my side. Then I remember that I'm just not that bloody important."

"Heh." Draco made a sort of that-might-be-funny-if-I-weren't-so-preoccupied noise.

Belatedly, Snape realized Draco had brought it up in the first place because the implication that Potter was closer to Lupin than Draco was to him bothered him. "I'd rather the others didn't call me by my given name, either, if they could be bothered to ask me."

"I noticed."

Noticed how, Snape wondered. "But I suppose if it's going to give you an inferiority complex, you may use my given name. Outside of school. If you absolutely have to." With any luck, he'd do it once, in front of Potter, and then never again.

Draco rolled his eyes. "Gosh, thanks."

At breakfast on the sixth morning, Lupin said, "Er...it's full moon coming up."

Snape hadn't forgotten, but he made a show of looking at the lunar table in the Prophet and saying, "Goodness, you're right. I wonder how you manage to keep track of these things. We'll have to remember to lock our door tonight," he said to Draco.

"Er, yeah," Draco said. "Doesn't this place have a proper dungeon?"

"I'm sure I wouldn't know," Snape answered. "I'm sure he'll think of something."

"Don't be foolish," Molly Weasley said sharply. "You'll make the Wolfsbane potion like you always do."

Snape affected an air of injured innocence. "I thought you didn't want any potions-brewing in your kitchen."

"I'll make an exception," she snapped back.

"Oh, no, wouldn't dream of it. No potions, that's what you said." He was enjoying this.

"I didn't mean that. Obviously."

"It's all right, Molly," Lupin put in. "I'll make other arrangements."

"You will not," she answered. "Snape's making the potion, and that's the end of it."

"I'm sorry, I must have missed the meeting when Albus put you in charge," Severus answered back. "When was that, exactly?"

"He didn't have to. If you had any sense of decency--"

"I haven't. Obviously." He bared his teeth.

Draco shoved back his chair and went over to where Mrs. Weasley was standing in front of the sink. "Look," he said quietly, "I think I can fix this, if you stop antagonizing him. Let me work on him, and--"

"Stay out of it, Draco," Snape said firmly.

"Fine," Molly told Draco. "I'll put it in your hands. But see you make him do it."

"Don't tell him what to do." He turned on Draco. "And you. What in hell do you think you're doing?"

Draco opened his mouth, then shut it again, and shook his head.

"Fine. Do what you like." He stormed out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

#

Some time later, Draco went upstairs and, not finding the Professor in the library or their room, eventually found him in their old room on the third storey. "Professor?" he said tentatively.

"I won't be played, Draco." The Professor's eyes were hard. As they had been when he had to pretend he hated Draco. Only worse, because this time it was real. "I won't have them thinking that all they need to do to make me dance their tune is have you ask me. I will. Not. Have it."

"I'm sorry," Draco said, floundering. Apologizing wouldn't be enough; he knew that. The battle lines inside 12 Grimmauld Place were as sharply drawn as those outside it. Maybe more so. Snape was on one side, and the others were against him. Draco was his only ally, and he'd wavered. Offered aid and comfort to the enemy. The Professor's affection for him was a weakness, and Draco owed it to him not to give them any help in exploiting it.

Absolution came more quickly than he had any right to expect. "I know. You meant well." Grudgingly, but it came.

Relief flooded him. "I won't do it again."

Snape regarded him inscrutably. "I know you won't."

"Why...why don't you want to make the potion for him?" Draco asked, hesitantly.

"Because I hate him."

"Oh." That was unsurprising. It was true, he was sure, but not complete. Snape hated a lot of people.

"Because Molly Weasley told me the day I arrived there would be no potions brewing in her kitchen," Snape continued. "And then as soon as one of them wants something, it's 'Oh, Severus won't mind brewing an insanely complicated potion with no proper equipment in a kitchen overrun by blithering idiots. Be a bit of a treat for him.' Of course, nothing else I might have been working on could possibly be important enough to inconvenience Molly Weasley, but as long as it's for Lupin, then of course it has to be done. Can't be helped." He shook his head. "I won't do it. There must be some place they can lock him up for the night. I don't care. I wasn't put on this earth for Remus Lupin's comfort."

"Of course you weren't. I thought you were just being stroppy."

"Perhaps I was. I've a right." He shifted his weight. "Go on, then. Tell me why I should do it."

"Really? But you said...."

"I said I wouldn't be played. I don't want you agreeing with everything I say just because I've said it. If there's a good reason why I should make Lupin's potion for him, I want to hear it."

Draco wasn't sure there was. Not anything the Professor would think of as a good reason. "You're right," he said slowly, "That they can lock him up. I suppose that's what they did with him before the Wolfsbane."

Snape nodded. "Yes."

"And we'll all know where he is, so there's no chance of someone letting him out or stumbling in on him out by accident, as there might have been when he was at school." Snape had made the Wolfsbane for Lupin at school, so there must have been something he considered a good reason to do it then. Unless he had done it simply because Dumbledore asked. Which wasn't entirely out of the question.

"Correct again."

"So I suppose the only reason he wants it, really, is to make the transformation less unpleasant. It's supposed to be rather painful. And being a beast without a mind all night--well, it's no wonder he doesn't enjoy that." Snape wouldn't consider any of that to add up to a good reason. Sparing Lupin pain, and the horror of looking upon his own monstrosity? No one had ever done that for him. "I see now."

"I thought you would." Snape's voice was as sad as Draco had ever heard it. "It would be a kindness, certainly, to make it for him. Tell me, what possessed you to think I would be capable of such a thing?"

Snape seemed to think that would be a difficult question. It wasn't. "Because you've sat up with me almost every night for the whole summer. Because you went with me to the Ministry last month. Because you gave me that bottle of dreamless sleep when we were quarreling. Because--" He put his hand up to his mouth, almost involuntarily. "Because even in my worst nightmares you'd rather chew your own hand off than watch me suffer. Shall I go on?"

"Perhaps you haven't noticed, Draco," he said silkily, "the common element in all of those events?"

Draco shrugged him off. "Fine. How about the Imperius Prophylactic? How's that supposed to help me? Or the new Cruciatus remedy that's got Longbottom's parents remembering their own names again? Or all the antidotes for all the poisons that I'll probably never take? How about the years you've spent risking your life to protect our world? How about how you've been making that damn Potion for Lupin all year and sending it to him by owl? I don't think you've got any problem being compassionate to people who aren't me, as long as you don't have to look them in the face when you're doing it," he finished up, a little surprised at his own realization. Snape didn't answer, and he added, gently, "What is it you think they're going to do to you?"

"Nothing!" the Professor snarled. Then, "Nothing. It wouldn't change anything."

And there was the rub. Nothing would happen. Nothing would change. The world wouldn't stop turning, and they wouldn't like one Severus Snape any better than they did before, but he would have to live with the shame of having...tried.

Draco wondered if he had tried, before. If the ugly little swot nobody liked had tried, somehow, to ingratiate himself with his schoolmates and been cruelly rebuffed--sure, Snivelly, you can do our homework any time you want, but you didn't think it would actually make us like you, did you? He didn't know, and he certainly wasn't about to ask, but it seemed like something that might have happened.

Just the thought of it was enough to make him think the pain of a werewolf transformation was just a taste of what Lupin had coming to him. He didn't know all of the history between Lupin and the Professor, but he knew that Lupin had done something, or not done something, that had helped set Snape's feet on the path to the Dark Lord. Only....

"I still think you should do it."

"Why?"

He struggled to put it into words. He was tempted to say, "Because it will show you're better than them." Which was true, but not the real reason. That was too easy an answer. "Because," he felt his way. "It doesn't matter if they think you're the sort of person who will only help someone else if there's something in it for him. But it matters if you think you are. It matters that you see not brewing this potion for Lupin as a way to prove what an utter bastard you are. Because if they're not going to believe any different no matter what you do, who are you trying to prove it to? The only ones who are going to know any different are me and you, and one of us already knows." Draco stood up. "I've got the lodestone and nettles stewing downstairs already. It'll be time to add the notionals in about twenty minutes. If you want to come down and help, or watch me cock it up, you know where I'll be."

Downstairs, Lupin asked, "Is he going to do it?"

Draco shook his head, but not in negation. "Too soon to tell." He took down a bundle of aconite--also known as Wolfsbane, or Monkshood--and started stripping the leaves.

"Any chance you can actually make the potion?"

"No. I've helped him with it loads of times, but I'm no good with notional ingredients yet--I'm still working on telling whether I've got them out of the bottle or not, and if I've managed to hit the cauldron with them when I have. And this thing has six notionals. But I intend to try, if he doesn't make up his mind to come down and take over."

"Thanks."

Draco inspected the word, as Snape would, for a hidden sting. He didn't find one, but then, he wasn't an accomplished Leglimens.

The werewolf spoke softly. "He's been hurt badly, hasn't he." It wasn't really a question.

"I expect you know the answer to that." Draco picked up the paring knife and began cutting the stems.

"I wish...there are a lot of things I'd do differently. If I had the chance. If I could go back."

"You can't." His hands flashed between the cutting board and the cauldron. "You can't change what you did before. You can only change what you do next. I've learned a bit about that, this year." Draco nodded towards the stairs. "He knows that what you did yesterday doesn't have to determine what you do tomorrow. But sometimes he forgets. It's hard."

"It's not like he'd notice if I tried being nice to him now," Lupin pointed out. "Or if he did, he'd just throw it back in my face."

"Does that matter?" He rapped the iron knife three times on the rim of the cauldron. He'd seen the potion made four times before figuring out that wasn't just a weird way of clearing off the blade. "What you're saying is, you've hurt him so often he probably won't notice if you stop. And to you that's a reason to keep on doing it?" He decided, at the last possible moment, to turn the blunt statement of fact into a question.

"I wouldn't put it that way, exactly."

"No, you probably wouldn't."

Draco continued to work on the potion. Lupin watched, several times seeming about to say something, but thinking better of it. Finally he said, "When we were in school, and my friends would pick on him, I often thought I ought to stop them. It was three...four...against one, and then I was a prefect, so... Only every time I was about ready to tell them off, he'd do something absolutely vicious, and I'd think, well, he can give as good as he gets after all. It was very hard to have any sympathy for him."

"He's like that," Draco agreed. He wondered if the young Snape had been able to sense Lupin's pity. He did so hate to be pitied.

"Even now, while I know that he's...he was, anyway...under an even greater strain than the rest of us, he makes it impossible to feel sorry for him."

"He doesn't want you to feel sorry for him." That explained, at least, what was at stake in making sure the others thought of him as a right bastard. If he wasn't, they'd feel sorry for him. Being hated was easier to handle than being pitied. Sympathy would undo him.

"Well, I do. Except when I'm face to face with him. Then I generally want to strangle him."

"I expect he prefers it that way." Draco lowered the flame beneath the cauldron slightly. He eyed the six crystal phials holding the six notional ingredients. Each was labeled in the Professor's neat, old-fashioned handwriting. They must have come from his stores at Hogwarts. It was almost time to add the first of them--Fear. Draco picked up the bottle gingerly. It looked as though it was empty, but he knew it wasn't.

"Well, then, I don't know what to do differently," Lupin said defensively.

"If those are the only two choices, you go on wanting to strangle him." He looked at the measuring implements--the scales, the beakers, the measuring spoons. Fear, and the other notional ingredients, had no weight, no volume. The only way to tell how much of it you were putting in the cauldron was to know. He'd been working on very simple potions with a single notional ingredient, and thought he just might be beginning to acquire the knack of it--but his skills simply weren't up to this. The best he could do would be to throw the ingredients into the cauldron and hope.

Which wasn't going to be good enough. Potions were subtle and exact. They rewarded diligence and precision, and punished bravado and haste.

Draco wondered if this was how Neville felt, standing in Potions class about to begin a Swelling Solution or something else that was, for the rest of them, simple. He knew how to do it. He even knew why he couldn't do it. But that didn't mean he could do it.

Then, they heard heavy footsteps on the stairs. Lupin looked toward the door, hopeful. Draco hoped he wouldn't say anything horrible, like "Thank you," or "I'm sorry."

The Professor moved stiffly into the kitchen, not quite looking at Lupin, not ostentatiously ignoring him either. He peered into the cauldron, ladled up a little of the potion to check the consistency.

"Does it look okay?" Draco asked nervously.

"Yes." He dropped the ladle back into the cauldron. "Yes, it looks fine." He stood back a little. "When adding notional ingredients, careful observation of the thaumaturgical reaction between the base and the ingredient can be invaluable in determining when enough has been added. You also want to pay close attention to the relative proportions of ingredients. In this case, it is essential that Fear and Hope be added in equal amounts. As long as they're exactly equal, a little more or less--more is better--than the formula requires will not be disastrous."

He made no move toward the phials, and it slowly dawned on Draco that he wasn't planning to. "All right then," he said bravely, and uncorked the Fear phial.

"The more slowly you pour, the more time you have to observe the reaction."

Draco nodded, and slowly tipped the phial over the cauldron. He could almost feel it trickling in. Almost, but not quite. But he had seen this done six--no, seven--times. He knew how it ought to look. The potion frothed and roiled, then subsided. He hesitated. Snape always stopped pouring about the same time as the frothing stopped. But he had been pouring more slowly. He wasn't sure.

"A touch more, I should think," the Professor said quietly. "Yes, very good."

Draco stoppered up Fear and reached for the bottle of Hope.

And so they went, Draco mixing the potion and Snape advising him every time he put a foot wrong. Lupin, wisely, didn't comment. Draco recognized how Snape had chosen to get through this: if asked, he'd insist that it had been a potions lesson, and that he had done it for Draco's benefit. He might even have believed it.

"Regret is delicate," he said, when it was time to add the last ingredient. "More so than anything else in this potion. A drop too much and the whole thing's ruined."

Draco nodded. He uncorked the bottle slowly, wanting to put off the moment where the whole thing was, indeed, ruined. He held the bottle over the cauldron, involuntarily wincing as he got ready to pour.

"Don't shut your eyes. Idiot. How do you think that's going to help?"

"Sorry," Draco murmured. He rather understood now how Neville's nervousness around Snape made disaster near-inevitable.

"Here." The Professor took Draco's hand in his and guided him as he tipped the Regret into the cauldron. "Give it a good stir, then."

Draco did. The potion looked right. It was grayish-blue, and quite thin in consistency, and steamed slightly. "Did we do it?"

"Did you, you mean. Let's see." He ladled a bit of it into a teacup and dusted the surface with powdered aconite. The whole thing frothed madly and bubbled over the side of the cup. Snape dropped the cup into the sink and quickly rinsed his hand. "Yes. Congratulations."

"Thanks," Draco said dryly. They both knew perfectly well he hadn't brewed the potion. Snape had done it using his hands.

"Last step, feed it to the werewolf. Because you might as well not have bothered if he's going to forget to take it," Snape said significantly.

"I doubt he's going to forget this time, after all the fuss he's made," Draco remarked, ladling some potion into another cup.

Lupin, somewhat to Draco's surprise, managed not to say anything except, "Thanks, Draco" when the cup was handed to him. He sipped at it, wincing. "Tastes just like always, I'm afraid."

Draco decided that if he was going to be held responsible for the potion, he'd also dish up the cutting remarks that traditionally went with it. "Yes, it's quite a shame that after spending three hours making the stuff, I can't drink it for you as well, and spare you that."

"Precisely what I was going to say," Snape told him approvingly.

#

Remus was still washing glassware when Molly came into the kitchen. "Hullo, Molly," he said cheerfully. Even to his own ears the words sounded hollow.

"He made it for you, then?"

"After a fashion."

"What's that mean?"

"He coached Draco through it. Don't worry, it turned out perfectly."

"Typical," Molly muttered. "That man..."

"I thought it was clever of him." If Snape himself had been there, he'd have called Remus on the lie. But Remus wanted to think it was clever--he had sworn he wouldn't make it, not this month, and had found a way to hew fast to his word. If Severus had been his friend, he'd have thought it was clever. As it was he thought it was pigheaded and childish. "Don't fuss. It turned out right in the end."

"His stubbornness will be the death of him," Molly remarked. "Let me wash those."

"I've got it," Remus said. "I've been a bachelor all my life; I know how to wash dishes."

"I expect he used every cup and spoon in the house on purpose."

"I doubt that. It's a very complicated potion." He could barely wrap his head around the idea of notional ingredients, himself. When Snape and Malfoy had worked on the potion, their talk of Hope and Fear and Regret, Loneliness, Will, and Memory-of-desire had sounded, to his bemused ears, like a pair of angels, or poets maybe, brewing up a man's life in a cauldron improvised from Molly's best stock pot. If Snape thought of those things as nostrums to be added to a cauldron, like so much daisy root or dragon blood...well, it explained a lot about him.

"Potions," Molly huffed. "When a man throws things in a pot and stirs them around, it's magic. When a woman does it, it's cookery."

"Now, Molly."

"Don't you 'Now, Molly,' me. All seven of my children have learned more about potions in my kitchen than they ever did in that man's classroom. He's a disaster."

A disaster was an unlucky star, and Severus Snape had been born under one, if anyone had. He'd had plenty of time to ponder Draco's gnomic pronouncements while he and Snape brewed the potion and pretended that he, Lupin, didn't exist. He had seen the way that, even while ignoring Lupin, he was unceasingly vigilant for an attack from that quarter. It was evident in the set of his shoulders and the subtle tilt of his head, and in the tense economy of his movements. He thought of Snape's pronouncement on their first afternoon in the house at 12 Grimmauld Place: "If you do anything to him, I'll kill you." He had taken it for Severus's signature unpleasantness, but perhaps it was something else. Perhaps Snape had really been saying, He may look like he's as vulnerable as I was, but he isn't. Somebody gives a damn, even if it is only me. Perhaps it had also been an acknowledgement of what everybody in the wizarding world now knew--that Draco was one Severus Snape's only point of weakness. And a warning to exploit that weakness at one's own dire peril.

One of the things that had made Snape so attractive a target to Sirius and James was the way he pretended that nothing mattered to him, that he could rise above the petty disputes of the school with calm indifference. It hadn't taken much the shatter the pretense and rouse him into an impotent, incoherent rage.

For some reason, that had seemed funny.

So perhaps it meant something that now he was able to stand up and say, "This is what matters to me." Even if he couldn't do it without involving death threats somehow.

And Remus had absolutely no doubt that the boy knew he mattered to Severus. He couldn't imagine Snape saying it, but it was obvious the boy knew. They were devoted to each other.

And he was Lucius Malfoy's son. Living in the Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix. Snape had wrested him single-handedly from the jaws of the Dark. It must have occurred to Snape to wonder what would have happened if someone had tried to do as much for him.

Molly was still talking. "It isn't right, the way he moons over that boy. A grown man and a child shouldn't spend so much time together. I know they aren't up to anything perverted, but it still isn't right. The boy should be around others his own age, and if Severus has decided he's tired of having none but his own company, he should make an effort to associate with other grown people."

"Draco's, what, sixteen? Not such a child." And he and Severus were each all the other had. "And they're family. Cousins, I think."

Molly snorted.