Pairing Severus Snape/Lucius Malfoy Rating NC-17 Warnings Oral sex Summary It is five years after the war, Malfoy is in trouble, and he needs Snape's help. Disclaimer The world of HP and its characters belongs to Rowling. The author of this fic has borrowed them for the purposes of storytelling. No profit was or will be made. Word count ~5,320 Author Notes Many thanks to florahart, who did a superlative job as beta reader.
Ebony and Silver
The party, although fairly sedate, was in full swing when someone knocked at the front door.
"Severus! Do you want me to get that?" a young woman called out, over the notes of "If Ever I Would Leave You" that were soaring out of the piano.
"No, never mind."
Severus Snape finished Banishing the blot on the carpet where a careless guest had knocked over a bottle of Disaronno Originale, strode swiftly to the door and jerked it open.
"Yes? What do you... Lucius?"
Malfoy looked a trifle taken aback at the light, sound, and laughter coming from within, blinked and stepped back a pace. His queue of silver-blond hair hung down over one dark velvet-clad shoulder and he tossed it back impatiently.
"You have a charm on the door and I didn't realize that you were busy. I can come back some other time."
"No, come in. It is merely a few friends, and you probably know most of them." He stood back to let Malfoy in and then closed the door behind him. "Would you like a drink?"
"I didn't... yes, that would nice," Malfoy said, looking with undisguised surprise at the dozen or so people in the large well-furnished room, several of whom were clustered around the piano, singing along with Myron Wagtail's renditions of old show tunes. The Weird Sisters' lead singer had a surprising repertoire of Muggle music and took obvious delight in showing it off for his friends.
Stamford Jorkins and Cuthbert Mockridge from the Ministry were standing by the buffet, eating canapés and drinking wine. They looked around and nodded affably to Malfoy. Glenda Chittock, the WWN announcer, waved cheerily from her place by the piano, but his entrance caused no particular stir among any of the guests.
"You didn't what?" Snape prompted, leading Malfoy over to the bar where he selected a bottle and poured him a glass of dark red wine. "You always liked Cockburn's port, as I recollect." He handed Malfoy the glass, and when their fingertips brushed together, both men pulled back hastily.
Behind them, Wagtail had switched from "Camelot" to tunes from Sigmund Romberg's "Desert Song" and was singing, "Give me some men," with gusto. Since his proclivities were well known, the guests around the piano were all grinning broadly.
"I didn't expect a place like this!" Malfoy blurted out.
Snape lifted one sardonic brow. "What did you expect? The corporation garbage dump?"
"No, of course not," Malfoy said, regaining his aplomb. "Fine wine," he added, after taking a sip. "Excellent vintage."
"I'm glad you appreciate it." Snape said dryly, pouring a glass of port for himself. "Now, to what do I owe the honour of your presence this evening?"
"I need to talk to you."
"Then perhaps it would be better if we moved to a quieter room." Snape picked up the bottle and ushered Malfoy through a door and into a pleasant study, lined with books and furnished with a large desk, a marquetry-topped table, and some chairs upholstered in butter-soft brown leather. Lit as it was by oil lamps set in wall brackets, the room had a warm and comfortable golden glow. He closed the door behind them and the sounds from the other room were muted to a whisper.
Snape seated himself in a leather chair and set the wine bottle down on the table next to it. He waved Malfoy to the other chair.
Malfoy sat down, took another sip of wine, and surveyed Snape. The other man seemed relaxed and only mildly curious. There were still pale scars visible on his throat from the snakebite that had nearly killed him, but the haggard look had gone from his hook-nosed, sallow, face and his ebony-black hair, although on the lank and limp side, looked clean and glossy. He still wore black robes, but they were obviously well-tailored and apparently expensive.
Snape looked calmly back at him, seeing a Malfoy who had become thinner and a little more hollow-cheeked, and who for once looked older than the six years that separated the two of them. There were lines of strain around Malfoy's eyes, and a haunted expression that he had never worn before the war. He seemed tense, but whatever worries plagued him, he still managed to radiate his old air of upper class rank and privilege.
"I dropped out of the wizarding world after... " Malfoy began, and then cleared his throat and started over. "That is, I have not kept up with public affairs for a number of years and I didn't know where you were. I looked for you first at Spinner's End. The place was full of Muggles."
"No doubt. I sold the house after the war."
"After that, I went to Hogwarts, where they informed me that you have not been at the school for two years."
"It was an affiliation that I decided I could discontinue without regret," Snape said, crossing his ankles and considering the square toes of his black Fly London loafers.
"They did give me your address."
"And you came here expecting to find your old comrade-in-arms eking out a meagre poverty-stricken living, is that it?"
"I didn't expect to find you in a luxury flat in Kensington!" Malfoy exploded.
Snape smiled coolly. "The difference between you and me, Lucius, is that you lack guile."
Malfoy raised his eyebrows. "I beg your pardon?"
"My Muggle father died when I was thirteen, and my mother took me back to her family. They were not particularly pleased to have a half-blood on their hands, but since I inherited their wizarding skills, they tolerated me and saw that I had decent clothes, a social education, and pocket money. As time went on, I felt a certain amount of amusement in having you and your coterie continue to patronize me as their unfortunate pauper friend. Guile, my friend, guile."
"Pardon my error," Malfoy said wryly, lifting his glass in mock salute before taking another swallow of wine.
"As for my current circumstances," Snape went on, "My grandfather died shortly after the war and he left me enough for my simple needs." He smirked and poured himself another glass of vintage port. "I moved here when I resigned my position at Hogwarts, and I left my mother at the family rookery to rule over the stones, bones, and family retainers."
"You no longer work with potions?" Malfoy sounded disappointed.
"I accept a few private students, most of whom hope to find work as apothecaries. I have a laboratory in Chelsea."
His guest seemed to relax a little at that, and nodded thoughtfully.
Snape lifted the wine bottle, tilted it to look at the half-inch or so that remained, and snapped his fingers.
A house elf in a white linen tea-towel toga appeared and bowed. "Master is wanting something?"
"Another bottle of the 1963 port."
The elf vanished and reappeared almost immediately with a new bottle. He removed the cork, refilled their glasses, and vanished, taking the nearly-empty bottle and its lees with him.
"How are things with you?" Snape asked.
"As well as can be expected, I suppose," Malfoy said. "Narcissa and I are living apart, but perhaps you knew that."
"I heard that she has been seen on the Continent, alone."
"After the war she took Draco to Durmstrang to finish his seventh year. He was no longer popular at Hogwarts." Malfoy stared into his glass. "She decided to stay in Austria. As for the Manor, I suppose I can count myself lucky. The Ministry was lenient and I have been able to keep things going, although not at the same level as before the war."
"I am glad that you were able to keep the estate," Snape said.
"Are you? You were working against me, for Dumbledore."
"I was, but I never had any desire to see you impoverished. You discovered at the end what Voldemort was like."
"When it was nearly too late," Malfoy muttered.
"Mind you, I don't expect to find you a reformed man," Snape said, with a hint of gentle mockery. "A penitent Malfoy would be too much for me to accept. Now then, we have had our small talk. What is it that you really want to say?"
"I need your help," his guest said reluctantly.
"In what way?" Snape turned his glass between his fingers, watching the soft light from the wall brackets turn it from fiery red to nearly black and back again.
"There was a potion that you brewed, which you gave to Voldemort for his followers. It was pale gold in colour. Sublimity, I think you called it, and you said that it was a new kind of lucky potion."
"I haven't brewed any of that since before the war ended." Snape finished his wine and set the glass down on the table. "That was over five years ago, in case you have forgotten."
"I have not forgotten." Malfoy stared down at his fingers, clenched around the stem of his glass. "There were side effects."
"Of course there were side effects! I brewed it as a modification of Felix Felicis, with the luck-enhancing properties removed but leaving that feeling of all-conquering invincibility that comes with a Felix overdose. It made the Death Eaters foolhardy, and that is why so many of them died." Snape looked at him intently, and his face was carefully shuttered. "Were you hoping to get more of it?"
"No. Contrary to popular opinion, I dislike drugs. But Voldemort gave it to Draco; commanded him to take it, in fact, so that he would be successful in his plans to destroy Dumbledore. Draco felt honoured!" he finished bitterly.
"And of course, my modifications rendered it useless for purposes of luck. He took large doses, I suppose, over a fairly long period?"
Malfoy nodded, and then took a deep breath.
"The cumulative effects were not apparent until well after the end of the war. Draco always had a sense of his own importance. I encouraged that when he was younger, trying to impress upon him that the place he held as a Malfoy was an enviable one and that he needed to uphold its dignity. But the effects of that cursed brew of yours brought him to the point of megalomania. Narcissa was finally forced to owl me. It took the two of us to bring him home."
"Narcissa did not stay?"
"No. She left after a month. She said that she could not bear to see him... the way that he is. I thought that the effects would wear off, but Draco has gotten worse. I have had to restrict him to a single suite of rooms in the Manor. He sees no one." The ghost of a smile crossed Malfoy's lips. "At the moment he thinks he is Paracelsus."
"I am sorry," Snape said simply. "Have you talked to the Healers at St. Mungo's?"
"No. I consulted a few private Healers, and Obliviated them afterwards. I will not have people saying that... that a Malfoy..."
Snape held up a hand. "Never mind."
"Since you brewed it originally," Malfoy said, "I assumed that you would know how to brew an antidote."
"I did not expect that to be necessary. I brewed it for a specific purpose, which it performed admirably."
"Severus, Draco is only twenty-two!"
"And the last of the Malfoys?"
"Damn you! Draco is my son, and I care about him. I still have the estate, I still have some gold. One way or another, I will pay you whatever you ask."
"Strangely enough, Lucius, I am not in need of gold."
Malfoy wiped a shaking hand across his forehead. "I am asking you to help me! If not for gold, then for the sake of what we once meant to each other."
"Did we really mean anything to one another, or was it merely part of the dance?" Before Malfoy could answer, Snape said, "All right, all right. Give me a few moments to think about it."
Snape tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling, his black hair hanging in smooth curtains on either side of his sallow face. He tapped his fingertips together, pondering.
Malfoy waited. The faint sounds of a Cole Porter song were audible from the other room, "I've got you under my skin."
Finally, Snape lowered his head. "I still have my notes, and I think it is possible that I can devise an antidote. However, I do not have the supplies necessary to brew a potion of this complexity and I would rather not work on it in my own laboratory. Potions students tend to be the curious sort and I would dislike having the matter become public."
"No more than I," Malfoy said quickly. "I can set up space at the Manor for you to do the work. Give me a list. Equipment, supplies, anything that you want, I will see that you have it."
"Anything, Lucius?" Snape's left eyebrow lifted infinitesimally.
"Anything!"
* * *
Snape Apparated to Malfoy Manor a week later, having given his students an assignment that would occupy them for several sessions. He lifted a hand to the broad wrought iron gates that closed off the front entrance to the estate, and they opened at his touch.
The wards had recognized him since he was a schoolboy and Abraxas Malfoy ruled the ancestral heap. If Lucius had reset them after the war and its aftermath, he had since restored Snape's right to enter.
Snape had not been to the Manor since before the downfall of Voldemort and now he looked around curiously at the buildings and grounds as he strode across the great lawn, where Malfoy used to exercise his prized Aethonons. The estate did not seem much changed. The ancient trees still drooped over the grass, and marble statues of fauns, satyrs, and nymphs still stood in the shadows, looking alive enough to bolt for cover at the sight of a stranger.
As he looked closer though, the ravages of time and neglect were a little more evident. There were still brightly coloured blooms in the flower beds but they seemed less tenderly cared-for than in years gone by, and here and there dandelions had invaded the beds. There were a few bald patches in the close-cropped lawn, and the litter under the trees needed raking. But there was still a peacock dragging its long tail over the emerald-green grass and from some distance away, the twittering call of a sand martin floated on the light spring breeze.
An elderly house elf opened the front door before Snape could touch the knocker, and took him to the library, where Malfoy, clad in smoky-grey satin robes, was restlessly pacing back and forth over a brightly coloured-Turkish rug. He whirled around at Snape's entrance.
"You're here!"
"Yes," Snape said, lifting his brows. "I told you that I would be here at two in the afternoon, and I believe I am on time."
"I thought that you might change your mind and not come at all."
"No, Lucius. Whatever my other faults may be, I do keep my word."
"I bought everything that you said you would need, and had the elves set up a brewing area for you. As far as sleeping arrangements," he added, "you have your old room." He sounded slightly embarrassed.
"It was always convenient for us, wasn't it?" Snape said smoothly.
A faint flush spread over Malfoy's cheeks as he called an elf, who took Snape's size-reduced travel bag and vanished with it.
"I would like you to see Draco," Malfoy said.
"If you wish," Snape said with a shrug, "but I am quite familiar with the Sublimity side effects, and you will remember that I have dealt with at least one madman before now."
Malfoy bridled. "I will not have my son called a madman!"
"Lucius, even at the best of times, Draco was an arrogant little shite. I do not wish the boy any permanent harm, but my life would definitely have been easier if you had paid more attention to his social graces and less to his social standing."
Compressing his lips, Malfoy headed toward the door. "This way!" he snapped.
They went to the west wing of the mansion and up a short flight of stairs to a long silent corridor. A door opened about half-way along the hall and a young man came out, padding noiselessly along in rubber-soled shoes. He looked at them and his face broke out in a broad smile.
"Professor Snape! It's a pleasure to see you, Sir! Terence Higgs, but you probably don't remember me."
"Of course I remember you, Higgs," Snape drawled. "You blew up two cauldrons in your first year and drenched your table mates with Pepperup Potion in your third."
Higgs grinned, unabashed. "I'm afraid Potions wasn't my best subject."
Malfoy cut in on the reminiscences. "You haven't left Draco alone, have you? I gave strict orders!"
"Oh, no, Sir! Urquart is with him now. I'm on break, that's all."
"How is he?"
"Not too bad today," Higgs said cheerfully. "He was railing against Urquart this morning for not bringing peacock tongues for breakfast, but then he got interested in banishing the Ministry and setting himself up as Caliph of Wizardom. Those Muggle books about the Arabian Nights were a good choice. He keeps getting new ideas from them."
Malfoy gave Higgs a withering stare before leading Snape to a pair of ornate double doors at the end of the hall. Pulling his wand out of his sleeve, he lifted a complicated set of wards, then used a large iron key to unlock the double-locked doors, and they entered the room--ducking to the side as a hurled platter of rice pilaf crashed into the door jamb.
* * *
"Well?" Malfoy asked half an hour later, pulling the double doors shut behind them and re-setting the wards.
"Well what?" Snape asked as they started back down the corridor. "Do you want me to admire your son's imagination? His insistence that we were spies from the Smarkand court of Prester John was at least inventive. I wonder where he got that bit of Muggle fantasy. If he had paid as much attention to wizarding history he might even have passed Binns' dreary class. Physically he seems fine, and there is certainly nothing wrong with his aim." He reached out and plucked a grain of cooked rice off of Malfoy's shoulder.
"This is no laughing matter, Severus."
"No?" Snape smirked at his host. "I thought his demand that Urquart cut your head off for insubordination had its amusing aspects."
"It's not funny!
Snape waved one elegant hand in dismissal. "Lucius, I did not see any unexpected symptoms in Draco. All right?"
Malfoy nodded.
"I am reasonably confident that I can brew a potion which will return Draco to the same obnoxious little toad he has always been. I cannot do more than that."
"But you can do it?" Malfoy insisted, as they started back down the stairs.
"Probably. I will not say more than that. Where is the laboratory?"
* * *
Several hours later, Snape was alone in the baroque bedroom where he had slept so many times before. It was a lavishly appointed room, with gilded cornices, green-bronze wall coverings, and a ceiling fresco that depicted centaurs sporting amid the trees. The marble mantel above the fireplace held various ornaments, some rare and all expensive, but there were no paintings on the walls that might invade the room's privacy.
True, the upholstered furniture was a trifle frayed in spots, and dust had been allowed to settle on the elegant mouldings, but the softly muted colours of the French carpet and the graceful curves of the white and gold furniture still spoke of elegance and wealth.
Snape had seen the decorations too many times before to be impressed by them, and he was tired from the work he had done that afternoon, which took magical concentration as well as all of his other skills. At the moment he was sitting up in bed, in a thin jade-green robe, leafing through a sheaf of notes. When the door began to open, he lifted his wand, which even in these familiar surroundings he kept conveniently within reach, and waited.
Lucius, wrapped in an ornate red dressing gown patterned with white peacocks and bird of paradise blossoms, came in and shut the door behind him.
The two men looked at each other for a long moment.
"Oh, put the wand down, Severus!" Malfoy said wearily. He pulled one of the room's two gilt and white chairs over by the bed and sat down heavily in it, crossing one ankle over the opposite thigh and jiggling the tip of his red Morocco slipper. "We were friends, once."
"More than friends, I thought," Snape said, squaring up his papers and putting them down on the night-stand with his wand on top of them. "As it turned out, I was wrong."
Malfoy ignored the comment, sinking his chin on his chest and regarding Snape morosely. "Would you turn back the clock, Severus, if you could?"
"Take a time turner to the past, you mean?" Snape pulled the two pillows higher up behind him, then folded his arms behind his head and considered. "Possibly. The question is, where would one interrupt the stream of time and send it along a new track? I can think of many decisions that I would like to change, many words that I would like to call back."
"Do you remember the night we talked about Voldemort's ambitions? When the first war started; when the killings began?"
"Yes."
"I wish I had listened to you, when you tried to convince me that it was not too late to get out of it all," Malfoy muttered, tapping his hands restlessly on the gilded arms of his chair. "That is the point I would go back to. I wish I had called you back when you walked away that night. I wish I had paid attention to what you said."
"I was twenty-one and you were twenty-seven, Lucius. I had just agreed to work for Dumbledore and I wanted you beside me, but you remained loyal to Voldemort." He shrugged. "That was a long time ago. I am forty-three now."
"And I am nearly fifty. A lot has happened and we've both changed. After that night we never talked much, did we?"
"You started a relationship with Avery," Snape said. "It left me with nothing to say. Nothing safe, at any rate."
"It wasn't a love affair, Severus. It was nothing like that. The Dark Lord said that Avery and I had a lot in common and that he wanted us to become closer friends. He pushed us into it."
"And one never disobeyed Voldemort, did one?" Snape said, mockingly.
"You know what he was like. He was insane, I can admit that now. I didn't dare risk his displeasure. I think Avery was as wary of him as I was, but we never spoke about it."
"What, no pillow talk?"
"Dammit, Severus! I was convinced that Voldemort told Avery to spy on me, and now I believe Avery thought I was spying on him. Since he's in Azkaban I can't very well ask him." Malfoy took a deep breath, and added, "I never told Voldemort about your doubts, Severus."
"Then I probably owe you my life."
For a long moment there was no sound except the magical ticking of a small porcelain clock that stood on the mantel.
"I loved you once," Snape said, and his voice sounded harsh. "When you started your affair with Avery I realized that you never really cared for me, that it was all a passing fancy on your part."
"No, you were wrong. It wasn't a passing fancy."
Malfoy got to his feet and stared down at the man in the bed, whose black eyes blazed up at him. Malfoy bent down and kissed him. They held that kiss for a long time, their lips parted and their tongues probing the warmth of each other's mouths. Malfoy's pale hair fell forward to mingle with the dark strands of Snape's, spreading in mingled silver and ebony threads across the white linen pillowcase. When they finally broke their kiss, both men were breathing hard.
"Can we turn back the clock, Severus?" Malfoy asked.
"I will not be burned again," Snape murmured in response, his voice so low that Malfoy had to strain to hear him. "But I think I can risk a night of dalliance--for old time's sake." He moved his hands to the front of Malfoy's dressing gown and slowly pulled it open. Malfoy was naked under the gaudy brocade and Snape ran his palms over the curled and golden hair on his chest. "You always did have a beautiful body. The years have not changed that."
Their mouths came together again, and Malfoy reached down to grasp the bedclothes, pulling them aside so that Snape lay before him, his lean, muscular, body covered only lightly by the jade-coloured fabric of his night clothes.
"Silk?" Malfoy whispered against Snape's lips. "What a sybaritic bastard you have become, Severus!"
"I learned it from the most elegant of my acquaintances," Snape answered, pinching Malfoy's nipples lightly.
Malfoy caught his breath and then laughed softly, unbuttoning the front of Snape's robe. "I should just Banish this," he murmured.
"Please don't! I am fond of this robe. You Banished my old grey nightshirt one time, and we never did get it back," Snape murmured, pulling Malfoy's robe off of his shoulders and dropping it to the carpeted floor in a heap. Do you remember that?"
"I remember," Malfoy said with a husky chuckle. "It turned up in the Small Salon a week later, draped over the top of a Goblin-made candelabra. Narcissa thought one of the gardeners had been cavorting in there and transformed the man into a newt."
Snape shrugged out of his robe and Malfoy sank down on the bed next to him, their naked bodies pressed together. Snape ran one hand over Malfoy's shoulder, then across his collar-bone and down along the middle of his body, tracing the line of pale hair that ended in a tangled golden thatch around Malfoy's cock. Taking that cock in his hand, Snape felt it swell and grow, as if it were a creature with a life of its own.
He murmured a spell and, with magically lubricated fingers, rubbed across the head of the organ, pressing the foreskin gently downward until the head of Malfoy's prick was naked and the shaft stood rampant in his hand, engorged now and darkened. Clear drops of pre-cum oozed from the slit and Malfoy groaned.
Malfoy bent his head and took one of Snape's nipples between his lips, pulling at it, suckling at it, his tongue teasing it while his hand reached down past the dark man's arm and took hold of his penis. Rubbing, massaging, caressing, they fondled each other's hard organs. And then, with unspoken consent, they pulled apart, and Snape sat up on the bed, turning so that he could reach Malfoy's cock with his mouth. He smoothed over it with the flat of his tongue, adding moisture of his own to the stiff prick.
Malfoy took Snape's cock into his own mouth then, moaning his desire around the organ as he teased the narrow slit in its head, and they both suckled greedily, laving each other's organs with their tongues, fondling and massaging each other's balls with eager hands.
It had been many years since they embraced each other, but hands remember, lips remember, and hearts remember. Malfoy and Snape. Lucius and Severus. They remembered and it was as if they had never been apart. Ecstasy washed over the two of them like a mighty flood and when the great release came, they drank eagerly, suckling the last pearly drops, swallowing with eager intensity as they had done so many times before, in the long ago past.
Righting himself on the bed, Snape threw himself down, his head on one of the two down-filled pillows, breathing heavily with the aftermath of passion. Lying there in the middle of the bed, with their slick and sweaty bodies pressing together as lovers bodies will, they rested in languorous contentment.
After a while, Snape lifted his head on an elbow and considered the other man. "Go back to your own room now. I need some rest if I am to do anything for your wretched brat," he said.
Malfoy sat up and would have spoken, but Snape pressed a finger over his lips. "If there is anything more, we can discuss it later. First things first, Lucius," he said and pushed him gently away.
* * *
Six days later, Malfoy and Snape were seated in the library, watching the flickering flames in the fireplace and sipping brandy from crystal snifters. Malfoy was wrapped in his favourite red-brocade dressing gown, but Snape wore his usual long black robe.
"You're certain that he will be all right?" Malfoy asked.
"You have asked me that three times already, Lucius. I am certain." Snape finished the last of his brandy and set his empty glass down on a marble-topped table, where the glass hit the white stone with a faint and final-sounding click!. He got to his feet, flexed his shoulders, and then wearily rubbed the bridge of his nose. "It has been a tiring day. I'm going to bed."
"You're leaving in the morning?"
"Yes. There is nothing left for me to do here. I would leave now, but I am too tired to be comfortable Apparating. Continue giving Draco the potion, in the doses that I have specified, morning and evening. You can discontinue the morning dose after ten days and the evening dose after another five."
Malfoy nodded without speaking.
"Good night," Snape said and left the room on silent feet, closing the door quietly behind him.
He was opening the door to his room when he heard the sound of footsteps, not quite running, and looked around to see Lucius hurrying toward him, soft-footed in his red Morocco slippers.
"Severus!"
"Have you forgotten something?" Snape asked, expressionless, as Malfoy came to a halt in front of him.
"No, it's something that I remembered," Lucius said breathlessly. "Severus, I won't do this!"
Snape leaned back against the door jamb, arms folded in front of his chest. "Meaning?"
"Meaning that I won't let you walk away from me. I did that before and I lost you for over twenty years. I can't lose you a second time."
"You mean that you want me to forget the past and pretend that we still love each other?"
"It's no pretence on my part," Malfoy said. "I realized a long time ago that I still care for you. Whatever I have to do to make you love me again, I'll do it."
"You had five years to tell me that, Lucius. Why did you wait?"
"I was afraid," Malfoy said, "and I was too proud. I could live on hope, but if you refused to see me, I wouldn't even have that. I needed help for Draco, yes, but his illness was also an excuse to talk to you again. I love you, Severus; I have never stopped loving you."
Snape considered him. "After due consideration over the past few days, I have reluctantly decided that I love you too. I think you'd better come in and discuss the matter."
"All night, if need be," Malfoy said fervently.
"That is exactly what I had in mind," Snape said, and held out his hand.