"Fallen," Snape/Draco, PG Title: Fallen Author:kethlenda Characters/Pairing: Snape/Draco Summary: No one deserves to be damned for one's adolescent stupidities. Rating: PG Warning(s): none Originally Written: 12/06 Notes: This was for harry_holidays, for a recipient who, as far as I can tell, never actually saw the damn thing. Betaed by Sionn. Holy crap, actual maleslash by me!
He comes home to Spinner's End, the Dark Lord's high-pitched congratulations still ringing horribly in his ears.
Lord Voldemort is pleased.
Pleased that I murdered a man who gave me houseroom and employment for my entire adult life, who took me in when no one else would have done. Who was the only one in the world who was willing to glance past the stain on my reputation, the mark of iniquity upon my flesh.
Once Marked, always Marked, and there was no choice for him in that moment, but being lauded for it only rubbed salt in the wound.
He is home now, if home is the shabby Muggle house of his childhood, in the shadow of the chimney that once blotted the skies with noxious smoke. He is not sure which is worse, the pollution or the grinding poverty that plagues the town now the mill is closed.
But there, on the doorstep, silvery hair like a halo under the streetlights, ethereal beauty that is foreign in this wasteland of soot and dust. Draco.
Lucius Malfoy is a fallen angel. The Muggle stories have it that Lucifer was still beautiful even after he led the legions against heaven and was damned for his rebellion. After all, what use a tempter who is not beautiful? Lucius' hands should be bloodied with a thousand nefarious deeds, and instead he is always impeccable, shining, gilded.
And Narcissa-now there is an angel who was never good but never quite bothered to fall. She watches as though from on high as her husband and son and sister do the will of the Dark Lord, yet she has not taken the Mark. She knows some of Lord Voldemort's most closely held plans, but she stands aloof, upturned nose and cool tolerance, except when the Dark Lord's schemes touch her loved ones. And even then, even kneeling and in tears, she seems a marble saint, never a supplicant.
And Severus, who has loved them both in his way, feels dirty in their presence, earthbound, as though all the mud they say is in his veins is on his skin. He is all oily hair and ink-stained fingers and shabby manners.
Draco is the best and the worst of both his parents, and the first day Severus saw his pale, fine-boned face in his classroom, his heart turned over. The faint hope, for a moment, of redemption, and then the bitter truth that Draco was not his father or his mother made over again, sent to give Severus a second chance. He was another sin, a guilty dream, forbidden. A child, for Merlin's sake.
He tells himself, has told himself a thousand times tonight, that the only reason he stepped in to do the deed was the Unbreakable Vow. He was saving his own skin, of course.
"I thought you'd go to your mother's," he says sharply.
Draco starts to his feet, hurriedly, face red with something Severus thinks might actually be embarrassment.
"S-sorry, sir. I just thought…" His voice trails off.
"You thought what?"
"Mother said you were under an Unbreakable Vow to protect me."
Severus knows enough Legilimency to smell a lie in this. "Not exactly. But come in."
Draco wanders aimlessly in the living room. Waiting to be asked to sit? Or afraid the chairs conceal vermin?
Severus gestures at the least ragged of the chairs. "Sit, Draco."
He does. In his ramrod posture, there is nothing of the boy who once sprawled like an indolent prince in the Slytherin common room.
Severus snaps his fingers and Wormtail emerges from the kitchen. "Wine, please. Only the best."
"I'm not your house-elf," Wormtail protests, but obeys. Severus smiles as he watches the man who once helped torment him pour his glass like a lowly servant. He wonders if the Malfoys, so accustomed to obedience, ever feel this sheer thrill of power in command.
Wormtail leaves them, and again Severus is alone with Draco.
"Sir?"
"Yes?"
"What did you mean when you said 'not exactly'?"
Severus takes his time, sipping his wine before he speaks, appreciating the rich sweet notes and the bitter finish.
His is a potion-maker's patience. Potions: the most useful of magics, and the least glamorous. When people think of magic, they think of pyrotechnics, shooting stars, loud explosions. Everyone underestimates the fine and delicate art in which Severus specializes.
Especially Tobias Snape. Severus still remembers the night his father set the bonfire in the back yard: books and parchment and one slender stick whose value Severus did not yet appreciate. He left her only her potions book, either overlooking it or not considering it important.
Severus also remembers Mother pressing the book into his hands, and whispering a secret. Anyone can make a potion, anyone with the proper attention to detail, the exacting care. Even a pure Muggle could mix the most potent brews if he knew where to purchase the ingredients.
Severus was safely away at school when his father died. The papers said his whiskey was laced with aconite.
Draco is still looking at him, worry in those silver eyes.
"I swore I would protect you, Draco, while you were doing the Dark Lord's bidding. I don't seem to recall you doing much of His bidding, do you?"
Draco reddens, shifts in his seat. "I would have." His voice is defiant, fierce, but it trembles.
Severus is not accustomed to being surprised, especially by his own feelings. He veils the thought quickly with the aplomb of a seasoned Occlumens.
That was what he was afraid of.
The Killing Curse requires emotion as a catalyst. Mere duty, especially clouded as it was by a grudging gratitude to Dumbledore, could not have done it.
Three fears: Draco failing and dying at the hands of the Death Eaters. Severus himself dead and unable to protect Draco. Third, and perhaps worst: Draco successful, Draco a murderer.
The world could forgive a green boy, perhaps, who took the Mark in a moment of youthful bravado, but never a cold-blooded killer who slew the most famous wizard of the age. Severus imagines Draco fallen beyond redemption, as starved for choices as Severus himself has been.
No one deserves to be damned for one's adolescent stupidities. Severus has already been damned for his.
"Why did you come here, Draco?"
Draco has already gulped down all his wine. "I told you. I thought you had sworn to protect me."
Severus scries into the clouded skies of Draco's eyes, and smiles. "You lie."
"Oh, all right. I didn't want to be bossed by my mum anymore, all right?"
This, too, is a lie. Severus can tell. He concentrates, and looks beneath the surface. He sees, as though through mist, what Draco is concealing.
I didn't want to endanger my mother. She's not part of this. But you, you're in this, you can take care of yourself.
Narcissa can take care of herself more than Draco suspects, of course. Her grieving Madonna act is only that. An angel whose horns are carefully hidden, all the better to play heaven and hell against one another.
Yet Draco's sentiment is a noble one, and a higher one that he has ever suspected lurked within his student's heart.
"Very well," says Severus. "You may stay with me. I am high in the Dark Lord's favour; I am sure he will indulge this whim of mine. We shall be…how do they say it? We shall be carefree bachelors together."
As for anything further--well, Severus has the patience of a potion-maker.