Petunia had always hated magic.
hated it because you can't have
It was wrong, it was unnatural, it was perverted—it perverted everything it touched. Flowers returning to life after they'd fallen, dead, off their stalks. Humans flying free through the air, like their bones were as hollow as a hummingbird's. Things changing their shapes, people changing their hearts, changing who they were, who they loved . . .
As a girl, Petunia hadn't been able to decide which she hated more, magic or Severus Snape. Maybe one or the other couldn't have taken her sister away, or maybe they could have, she'd never know, but both together . . . Even when Lily had finally seen what a freak Snape was, when she cut him off without any remorse and Petunia had taken to saying his name to watch and relish the way Lily's face twisted, she hadn't come back. There had still been that chasm between them, broken open by magic, by Snape. There had been no putting it back together.
all the king's horses, all the king's men
Petunia hadn't seen him since he was a skinny boy of sixteen—fifteen?—seventeen?—the last time she'd been forced by her parents to greet Lily at that terrible (wonderful, exhilarating, wretched, hateful) platform. Lily and Snape had been fighting that time, so it might have been the start of that summer, but they had always fought. They were always rowing, always quarreling, and Lily would slam doors and shout and tell everyone she was never speaking with him again, only to flash merrily down the stairs the next day, calling I'm meeting up with Sev, don't wait up on her way out the door. Then she'd come back smelling like cigarettes, her clothes all dirty and dusty, her face flushed and her tongue sharper, tossing her hair and thinking she was queen of Cokeworth.
But after that summer, except for a distant glimpse of him somewhere—up the street from the grocery, maybe, or on the edge of the park near their house, down by the curve of the river—Petunia had never seen him, because Lily had told the truth for once and hadn't made up with him. Even if she was never again Petunia's sister the way she once had been, Petunia had at least gotten that triumph: Lily wasn't hers, but she wasn't Snape's, either.
Lily had warned her about him. He's going to be a Death Eater. It's hard to explain—no, just listen, would you, Tuney? Death Eaters, they're like this cult, this death cult, they practice awful magic—not really like Satanism, but think of it that way if you want—no, not yet, but he will be, all right? They hate Muggles like you and Mum and Dad and Muggle-born witches like me. So if you see him . . . just watch out.
And there he had been just watch out in Petunia's dining room so if you see him all grown up. Beyond ugly, beyond nasty, terrifying just watch out his face white and twisted and his foul, uneven teeth bared watch out
His wand was made of black wood.
She'd reached for Dudley, staring at the wand, the sight of it burning into her retinas, knowing she couldn't do anything but just watch she had to try.
And then he'd frozen them and just walked away. Taken the girl. And she'd gone with him.
Petunia didn't know about Vernon and Dudley, what they thought; but she had known that Snape could have killed them if he'd wanted to, and they'd have been able to do nothing except die.
She hated magic hated it hated it
The telly kept playing. The clock in the parlor ticked. The wine she'd knocked over was staining the carpet for good. Her muscles were aching, protractedly and unnaturally, all over. She could barely breathe, couldn't even blink. Her eyes stung like ants were crawling in them. Sweat was running down the side of Vernon's face. She couldn't see Dudley. Her hand was stretched out toward him but she'd been facing Snape in the doorway.
He'd taken her. God only knew what he was doing with her even now, the sick, nasty, perverted freak of a wretch—not that Petunia cared, it served them right, but it was sick, all the same. . .
The clock in the parlor began to toll midnight. How many hours was that (five)?
When the last gong died into the ticking silence, it left the house quiet enough that she heard the front door click open.
Her heart began to race. Her whole body filled with the desperation to move, to protect her baby, to call for help, but it couldn't move, not even an inch, not even a hair—her throat crowded with her breath, unable to expand, frozen as it was—
The intruder climbed the stairs. The faint creaks were audible but subdued, like footsteps calmly walking. In the midst of panic, Petunia was bewildered. Had this intruder also come for Lily's brat? Well, he wouldn't find her.
Please God let him not be angry that he couldn't find her let him just go
The stairs creaked as the uninvited guest walked back down, a few minutes later, and a shadow undulated across the wallpaper in the hallway outside the dining room. Coming toward the dining room. She couldn't blink, but would she had if she could? Would she have closed her eyes even for that long?
A man appeared in the doorway, tall and wearing ludicrous wizard's (freak's) clothes in glittering purple, with layers of silvery beard and hair reaching to his waist. Petunia knew him, she remembered him, from Lily's funeral, when he'd walked her up to the coffins and held her hand until she'd shaken him off.
His wand was in his hand now, abhorrent thing, making her sick. He waved it in the air like a child drawing invisible pictures and said clearly, "Finite Incantatum."
She felt Snape's spell lift, like plastic wrap peeling off of her skin, like electricity shooting across her muscles. She, Vernon and Dudley all gasped, sagging, clutching their throats, trying not to slip out of their chairs to the floor.
Dudley's breaths were sobbing and loud, wrenching at Petunia's heart, and she forced her stiff, aching body out of her chair to gather him against her. He clung on, and somewhere in the depths of her fear and her relief and her loathing (for magic and Albus Dumbledore and Snape and Lily and her brat), her heart flew, because she couldn't remember the last time her baby had done more than suffer her affection. Dudley was growing up, becoming a man, and although it made her burst with pride, she ached for those years when he had reached for her, crying real or false tears, because he wanted to be held, and her world had revolved around that. It still did, even though it was seldom allowed.
But now he hung onto her, miserable and bewildered and scared, because of these wizards, and she felt a sense of rightness and of shame.
"You." Vernon's voice was garroted, gurgling. He had pushed himself to his feet, but he had to lean unsteadily on the table to stay upright. Petunia couldn't help noticing how the old man towered over him . . . but it didn't matter whether Dumbledore was the larger man or whether he was as small as Snape, whom Vernon could have crushed if it weren't for magic wands. Because there were magic wands, and no competition would ever be level between those who had and those who hadn't.
"You—get out of my house," Vernon croaked, "before I call the police—I'll have you locked up, so help me—"
Dumbledore had folded his hands into his wide, bell-like sleeves, was listening to Vernon with every sign of courteous interest. In that moment, Petunia despised him almost more than Snape.
"I doubt the attempt would alleviate the suffering tonight has caused you," Dumbledore said, almost gently. "And you must have seen . . . that it would be little more than an attempt."
"You—" Vernon had got his voice back; Petunia could tell he was now only speechless from fury and the memory of what had happened. "You-u filthy old—"
"Bullies." Petunia was startled to hear her own voice, a whiplash of venom, that made Dumbledore turn his attention serenely on her. "Cowards and murderers—you come into our home and you threaten—"
"I make no threats," Dumbledore said, and she loathed how tranquil he was. "If Professor Snape delivered any, you may now consider them withdrawn."
Professor? Petunia's rage, driven off-course, gave way to confusion, and she stared in silence; Vernon, too, Dudley snuffling but listening, watching around the sharp angle of her own arms.
"Yes," Dumbledore said, as if hearing every unspoken yet incredulous question, "Professor Snape is one of Harriet's, your niece's," his voice cooled, Petunia heard it, and could have killed him, "teachers, and under my employ. I sent him to check up on Harriet after I received an alarming communication that she was not being allowed certain natural freedoms."
He tilted his head to look at them over the tops of his spectacles. His gaze was not kind or threatening, or even considering: it was the gaze of a priest, of a man with the power of God to see into your soul, all the stains of sin and guilt inflicted on it through the years. And like a priest in a confession box, he made no condemnation, but he had heard you through that thin partition, and he knew what you'd done.
"I have little wish," he said, "to involve the authorities, but conditions such as Professor Snape informed me of, and which I have now verified for myself, are matters which could place you, Mr and Mrs Dursley, in an awkward position with the law. Forceful imprisonment and starvation are matters that child protective services would not easily condone."
"Then call them," Petunia whispered, her voice hissing out in a bitter taunt. "Either call them or get out of my house."
"That's right," Vernon said, his voice so loud that Dudley jumped. "Either call the ruddy authorities or get out of my house before I call them, you pompous old windbag—"
Dumbledore held up his hand. Even though it was empty of his wand, they all froze. He gazed at them . . . sadly, Petunia thought.
A carving knife for the chicken lay on the table, bits of flesh stuck to its blade. She could feel the phantom weight of it in her hand, the dimensions of the handle, the chill of the stainless steel. She wondered how the impact would judder through her bones if it sank into living human flesh.
"Eleven years ago," Dumbledore said quietly, "I asked that you take Harriet into your home and provide her with love and care. The first part of my request you answered . . . however begrudgingly. But can you tell me that you have answered the second? After what I have seen upstairs, can you tell me this?"
The clock chimed three light notes: a quarter past midnight. No one spoke.
"I regret what Professor Snape has done," Dumbledore said, still serene but solemn, too, still in that priest-like way. "But I regret infinitely more what has been done to that poor child he took away with him."
"We couldn't stop him," Vernon said immediately. "Shouldn't you, with all your ruddy magic, be able to find the bastard, if you're so ruddy concerned about the blasted girl? Not that she didn't go with the freak all willing—"
"Mr Dursley," Dumbledore said, in a voice like a professor calmly restoring order in a classroom, after a student has just said something lewd or racist, "Professor Snape brought Harriet straight to Hogwarts. I am sure you will be relieved to hear that Madam Pomfrey—our resident . . . physician, as you would call her, I believe?—was able to combat Harriet's malnourishment. She is now quite safe in the company of her friends."
"Good," Vernon said with feeling. "Then she can ruddy well stay there. We're not having that little freak back in this house. We've had nothing but trouble from your lot—"
"I am afraid," Dumbledore said, "that you must accept Harriet back into your home."
There was no change in his inflection, his stance or his expression, but Petunia thought she felt, ineffably, that he did not want to say this any more than they wanted to hear it. She certainly didn't want to hear it. The very thought was a violation. Take that brat back into their home, put her within reach of Petunia's own beloved boy, when at any moment those wizarding freaks could raze the house to the ground and murder them all, with a snap of the fingers or a flick of the wrist? Who did he think he was, to ask that, who did he think she was—
She realized, then, that she had been shrieking all this out loud, screaming at Dumbledore. Dudley had ducked his head, cowering against her hip, because she'd got to her feet and grabbed the carving knife and was waving it at Dumbledore like a wand, jabbing and slashing at the air. Vernon looked horrified. His slack face, his wide eyes, said he wanted to calm her down but didn't dare.
She wasn't one of them. She wasn't a murderer, wasn't a freak. Even if they deserved it.
She dropped the knife. It bounced off the edge of the table with a clatter and thumped to the stained carpet.
"Look what you've made me do," she whispered.
The whole time, Dumbledore had been silently, attentively watching her, as if he were listening to a potent speech by the Prime Minister. She placed her hand on Dudley's shoulder and felt him quivering with fear, or perhaps with the aftereffects of being frozen for five hours, or maybe from watching his mother scream and wave a knife through the air.
"No," she said simply, her throat tight.
"I am afraid you must," said Dumbledore.
Her rage made the light in the room flare, incandescent. "How can you ask—"
"How," he returned, his pale eyes fixing her with the force of a spell, "can you have treated the daughter of your sister so?"
Do you really want to know old man do you really
"Now wait just a minute—" Vernon started.
"There is no crime a child can commit that would justify the imprisonment and starvation you have so recently inflicted." Dumbledore's voice made the pale shadows on the wall seem to warp, the brightness of their electricity to dim, the stuffy, panicked warmth of their house to cool. "Nor the emotional neglect of a lifetime. It pains me more than I can express to have no choice but to return Harriet to this place." His gaze swept the room as though it were the most rancid of prisons, like that Azkaban place that Snape used to go on about, with those creatures that could suck out your soul. "But I do have no choice. And I must remind you that you have no choice but to take her."
When Vernon spluttered, Dumbledore went on, "As I told you eleven years ago, as Harriet's relatives, you are vulnerable to Lord Voldemort's machinations and those of his followers. But if she can call your home as hers, then the protection that Lily's sacrifice gives to her will also encompass you. So long as you honor Lily's memory by allowing Harriet to have a home here, her protection is yours as well."
And Petunia could imagine it all to plainly, now: wizards, breaking into her home, coming for her precious baby, all because of Lily . . .
But something wasn't right, something he had said was wrong, very wrong, like a jagged edge that wouldn't fit. It only took her a moment to find it, while Vernon grumbled and chuntered under his breath. "Then how come he was able to get in and take her?" she demanded.
"The charm protects Harriet—and you—against those who would harm you," Dumbledore said, unfazed. "Professor Snape was acting, by his beliefs, in Harriet's best interests, from a desire to help her. But if she hadn't wished to go with him, he would not have been able to remove her from this house—"
"He put us under a spell!"
"He Immobilized you. It is not a harmful spell, and was chosen for that reason. Though I do not doubt its psychological repercussions under these circumstances," he went on before they could retaliate, "the nature of the magic allows for it. But Death Eaters—Lord Voldemort's followers—would not be so . . . benign."
"He's a Death Eater!" Petunia spat. "She told me, all those years ago—"
"Death—?" Vernon repeated, clearly bewildered.
"Please allow that the situation is more complex than can be succinctly explained," Dumbledore said. Without waiting for their reply, he said, "Will you submit to the protection of the spell and allow Harriet to return?"
Petunia wanted to say no, oh, to God she did. She didn't want that nasty, unnatural spawn of freaks anywhere near her baby (whether she meant Snape or the little brat she didn't know, she could easily have meant both, since one brought the other). But . . . if it could protect Dudley . . . if letting the girl back in would keep him from harm . . .
"All right," Petunia spat. She had to force the words out of the twisted mass of hatred in her heart, out of her throat clogged with desperation, and ignore Vernon's sputter of disbelief. (The last was the easiest part.) "Now get out."
Dumbledore inclined his head to them. "I thank you," he said. Then, without another word, he left. Perhaps he didn't want to offer any words, perhaps he knew they wouldn't have helped. Petunia didn't care. Now that he was gone, it would be ten, almost eleven months before they had to see another wizard.
Until the girl grew up or died, that was all they could hope for.
Narcissa's gardens were in bloom, mostly irises at this time of the year. Today Wiltshire was sunny, and the scent of grass drifted on the wind.
There were times when the evidence of how his life had diverged from his expectations struck Severus so forcibly, he almost reeled. The approach to Malfoy Manor was like some literal manifestation of memory lane. Whenever he walked the path to the front gates, he was reminded of ambitions long turned to dust: not of wealth and influence centered in a great house and sprawling grounds, not necessarily, but of power and status. He used to come to this house to find it, back in those days when the Dark Lord's presence at one's dinner table was an honor.
The house itself was dark, heavy and imposing. It suited Lucius, although it had suited his father more. With every generation the Malfoy blood seemed to water down, producing heirs who were more sociopathically self-involved than ruthless. Looking at the steeply sloping black roof, the windows like narrow eyes, he couldn't imagine Draco becoming head of this household. The moldings in the nursery had given him nightmares until he was nine.
The smell of gravel was strong on the drive, and the fountain gushed cool, clear water. Its sculpture resembled Bernini's Apollo and Daphne so closely that Severus had always wondered whether some Malfoy ancestor hadn't robbed the Galleria Borghese and left a replica in place of the real thing. That was a pureblood all over for you: scorn Muggles and everything to do with them, but drink their wine and steal their art.
The house-elf let him in the front door, just as he'd hoped.
Its appearance was as miserable as the girl had described to Dumbledore, and there were recent welts on its ears that looked like the marks of an oven door. It cringed at his feet in a sort of abasing bow, and it was all he could do not to tell it to get up off the floor and stop cowering.
A glance said the front hall was empty of company, and the house around him was silent. He stared down at the elf, wringing its hands while it waited for directions.
"Miss Potter sends her regards," he said softly.
The elf went rigid, as if hit with a Full Body Bind. It darted a fearful, bewildered look up at his face but then screwed its eyes shut immediately.
"D-dobby does n-not know wh-what Profess-ssor Snape Sir-r means—"
"Don't lie to me," Severus hissed, checking again to make sure the hall was empty. "Where is Lucius?"
"Mmmmaster Malfoy and Young Mmmaster Draco are at D-diagon Alley—" the elf squeaked.
"And Narcissa?"
"On the s-south terrace!"
He made a dash for an umbrella stand, in punishment for what, Severus didn't know, but he grabbed it by its skinny little arm.
"What is coming to Hogwarts?" he demanded.
"Dobby cannot say!" it squealed. "Dobby cannot! Dobby has told Harriet Potter she must stay away to be safe! Dobby—" He clamped his mouth shut and shook his head so hard his ears went flap flap flap.
Internally, Severus swore. Leglimency didn't work on house-elves; their brains were too different. And, he thought as the elf thrashed in his grip, straight interrogation wasn't going to work.
He was under no illusions about himself: if it would help to torture the elf, he would do it. But he knew enough about house-elves to know that it would do no good. They were magically bound to serve one family until released either by decree or by death, and that service was absolute. Their masters didn't have to order the elves to keep their secrets; it was so deeply ingrained into their being that the elf had punished himself for delivering a warning. More than the warning he wouldn't be able to give.
The elf gasped, "Dobby must go!" and vanished from beneath Severus's hand.
Swearing aloud this time, Severus headed for the south terrace. He had known how it would be, and yet he was disgusted and furious.
He debated setting some of Lucius's silk damask drapes on fire but decided that while it wouldn't make him feel any worse, he wouldn't feel any better, either.
As he let himself out onto the south terrace, he wound up all his feelings of frustration, anger, anxiety and slipped them underneath his everyday contempt. Although he considered himself to be, in some ways, particularly subtle, he was aware that he had only two ways of getting information: frighten it out of them, or snoop. The first technique had failed, so now it had to be the second.
Of course, anyone who tried to frighten information out of Narcissa Malfoy had obviously never met her.
Malfoy Manor suited Narcissa even less than it did her son. It was no surprise to find her sitting on her tiered terrace beneath a sunshade, drinking lemonade from a long-stemmed crystal goblet at a wrought-iron table painted white. The long, full hem of her silvery gown rippled in the breeze. Narcissa always reminded him of a Watteau.
"Severus, my pigeon," she said, glancing up as his shadow fell across the table. Her mouth did not smile because she didn't want to risk wrinkles, but her eyes said she was pleased. "It's good to see you—and looking more like Dracula than ever. How ever do you manage it?"
"I live in a dungeon," he said. The chairs were likewise white-painted wrought iron, but someone had applied a cushioning charm and they weren't uncomfortable at all.
Narcissa sighed, a soft, wistful, almost yearning sound. "Don't you wish summer was longer?" she asked, staring around at her garden, which the house-elf no doubt tended for her. If Narcissa had ever had dirt under her fingernails, the last time must have been when she and her sisters had still plaited ribbons in their hair.
"I wish it were indefinite," he said, thinking drearily of all the long days and coming nights when the students would be back in residence. His Slytherins had appalling tendencies to knock on his door at all hours and tell him the most inappropriate stories, most of which ended with his suggesting flatly that they invest in contraception and preventatives against disease.
"If only it didn't have to be boarding school," Narcissa said. "If only Draco could come home in the evenings, the house wouldn't feel so wretchedly empty. I'm re-decorating the Slightly Greenish Drawing-room just to have something to do. And Potentilla Parkison has far too much time on her hands to nurture everything about her that is insufferable now her last daughter's out of her hair."
"I'm shocked to think she was ever involved in that girl's life at all," Severus said. Pansy Parkinson demanded too much attention from everyone to suggest otherwise. She particularly loathed Lily's daughter for taking some portion of it away from her.
"I couldn't believe it myself, but what else could be the explanation? The wretched, ugly girl went off to Hogwarts at the same time as Draco. Severus, darling, you'll let me know if it seems like Draco might do something horrific like fancy the little gorgon, won't you? Young men always take the most ludicrous fancies to the most unsuitable girls . . . "
It isn't Pansy Parkinson you're going to have to worry about, Severus thought. No, if Draco's constant attempts at one-upping Lily's daughter and sulking when he failed were any indication, he'd be nursing a full-blown crush by the start of next year, if not sooner. Severus hoped the girl, at least, had better taste. He was very fond of Draco, but he it would probably take him a good fifteen minutes to think of a more self-absorbed little prat . . .
No, in fact, it wouldn't. "You won't believe who's going to be the next Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher."
"Ooh," Narcissa said, sparkling at his tone. "Someone dreadful, is it?"
"If I don't wind up developing an ulcer, I'll probably commit murder before Easter."
"Oh, that tells me nothing. You want to murder at least twelve different people every quarter of a minute. Who is it this time?"
"I believe it was you who told me you saw him in Baudelaire's Beatific Parlor, having his hair set."
"No—not Gilderoy Lockhart?" Narcissa gasped. When Severus grimaced, she let out a peal of silvery laughter. "Him, teach Defense? He can curl an eyelash with the best of us, but Defense? What is that absurd old man thinking?"
"That there were only two applicants for the position, and one of them was me," Severus said with a sneer that conveyed his many-layered disgust.
"Oh, well, then," said Narcissa. "No, Severus, he's too afraid you'll torture the little beasts—or that the curse will get you. Come now, my lamb," she said when he snorted, "there's not been a single teacher who could hold that post more than a year, not since before we were students . . . and if you dare to recall how many years that is, I will give you a good sharp jab in the eye with my sunshade. It must be cursed."
He scowled at a patch of yellow iris. "Well, it's done. They won't learn a bloody thing, unless it's about eyelash curling."
"He has written all those books, you know," Narcissa said contemplatively, rotating her sunshade so the shapes of the shadows on her arms warped like a kaleidoscope. "And the majority of them are on the booklist that dreadful McGonagall sent, in fact. Speaking of gorgons . . . Well, this explains it."
"I'm sure he plagiarized every word," Severus said.
A clatter on the terrace above made him look around. Draco had run out, wearing Quidditch robes stitched in the same cut and colors as the Appleby Arrows and dragging a broom that Lucius must have just bought him; all the twigs were sleek and in place and the mahogany handle gleamed in the sunlight. No twelve-year-old boy could keep a thing in such good condition if he'd owned it more than a day.
"Mum!" he said imperiously, strutting down the steps toward them. "See the broom Father's just bought for me! Oh hullo, Professor," he added with a negligence that he must have been practicing for some time; it was quite good. Very decently obnoxious.
Narcissa paid the broom several practiced compliments, even managing to sound to Severus's cynical ears as if she meant them.
"Well, I'm off to fly her," Draco said, and in his excitement forgot to act like the heir of a crashing snob. He ran down the flight of stone steps to the bright lawn below, looking for a moment as if he were just a normal twelve-year-old boy, not a child who might be living on the verge of a long, dark shadow . . . some of which might soon be cast by his own father.
Severus gauged the expression on Narcissa's face as she watched her son. It was tender yet fierce, pride mixed with humility.
"He's happy at Hogwarts," he told her.
"Yes." Her eyes looked bright, but he was certain that if he tried to count the years it had been since Narcissa had last cried, she'd jab him in the other eye with her parasol. "He had a delightful first year. Although he was quite put out about that business with the House Cup at the end of the year—"
That. Severus had refused to speak to Dumbledore for twenty-six days. To abase his House like that, in front of everyone . . . Severus had always been aware of Dumbledore's House bias, but that stunt had been even more blatant than anyone (mostly Minerva) had ever accused himself of being.
"But it's to be expected," Narcissa said, her lip curling with ladylike distaste, "from a school run by Gryffindors."
"A great many atrocities are to be expected from such quarters," drawled Lucius's familiar voice, so posh it sometimes made Severus's teeth ache to listen to it. He always winced inside when Lucius pronounced 'years' with an 'h.'
". . . But what is it this time?" he asked, coming to a stop next to the table and looking down his straight, aristocratic nose at them. Severus felt old habits clicking on, like lights in a Muggle house: betray no new expression, watch for the subtle tells of lies, agendas, anxieties.
Lucius looked like someone who wanted to bring something up, but was waiting for the opportune moment.
"Lucius darling," Narcissa greeted him. "Oh, Severus and I were only rehashing that criminal business with the Cup."
"Ah." Though naturally less ladylike, his sneer had all the precision of his wife's. "Of course. Draco wrote us, and we had—"
"Mu-u-um!" Draco's voice went wheeling overhead. "Hyyyyyaaaaaaah!"
"Spectacular flying, my darling," Narcissa called after him, but he was already a whooping dot in the distance. "Another broom, Lucius?"
"I purchased the lot for the Slytherin Qudditch team, I had to get him one, too," Lucius said irritably.
"The whole team? What in Merlin's kingdom for?"
"For Draco to bribe his way on, naturally," said Lucius, as if it should have been obvious but he was pleased with himself nonetheless. "What do you think, Severus?"
Severus would be dearly disappointed if this was all Lucius had been waiting to talk about. "What position?"
"Seeker," Lucius said, with a subtle look and grimace that dared Severus to connect this to Draco's nascent obsession with the girl.
"I thought Draco preferred Chaser," Narcissa said, which told Severus that she had skimmed right over the parts of Draco's letters that had even remotely dealt with Quidditch.
"All I know is that Seeker is the desire he professed," Lucius said. "It might be Beater tomorrow, for all I know."
"Whoohoo-hooo-ooh!" Draco commented as he shot overhead in a sou-sou-westerly direction.
"Seven Nimbus 2001s," Lucius told Severus slyly. He must be in a good mood today to play the bribery game to the hilt; normally, he would have bribed just for the sake of acting the part of the Honorable Slytherin while not-so-subtly reminding Severus what sort of lamentable social position he occupied.
"Which will naturally give them an edge over the whole of the Gryffindor team," Severus said blandly, "whose best broom by far is a Nimbus 2000." And the girl's.
"I have full confidence in Slytherin's ability to outperform the Mudbloods and pinheads of Gryffindor," Lucius said smoothly. "But there's no harm in doing the thing properly, is there?"
"None at all," Narcissa said warmly, while Severus forced his fingers to uncurl from his palms. His skin stung where his nails had dug in. "Draco will be so happy to be on the team, Severus, he talked of it endlessly all last year." So she had read that much. There had probably been no avoiding the general impression.
"I'll let the captain know," Severus said. His voice, he was pleased to hear, sounded as normal and subtly self-satisfied as Lucius's. Of course, this was only a small test of his ability to feign and dissemble, but for the moment it had returned to him as naturally as breathing. And he was here in the capacity of a spy.
He might have expected to regret that, even though he could find no trace of the feeling. These people had been his friends for years. Draco had thrown up on him more times than he could count during infancy (whenever anyone looked at him sideways, it had seemed).
But he remembered the girl's skin when he'd torn her away from Quirrell: as cold as marble and hot as dry ice, gray tinged with green, only the whites of her eyes showing. If Lucius was plotting something at Hogwarts that would threaten her, then a line was drawn and crossed.
He wasn't going to fail Lily again.
"Dobby," Lucius said coldly.
With a crack, the house-elf appeared on the terrace, looking just as miserable as before. His bow this time looked like an attempt to tie himself into a knot.
While Lucius abused his elf with an order to bring wine, Narcissa murmured, "Oh dear. Draco's decapitated the topiary."
A few moments later, Draco clattered over to the table, dragging his broom (several of whose twigs were already snapped), his white-gold hair sticking out like a haystack infused with a corona of broken leaves.
"This broom is brilliant," he declared, throwing himself into a chair next to his mother, who began picking the leaves out of hair. She could have used a spell, but she didn't.
"I'll leave those Gryffindorks in the dust," he gloated. "Won't I, sir?" This last was said to Severus, who had apparently returned, for the moment, to the ranks of People Worth Noticing. But not too far: without waiting for a reply, Draco went on haughtily, "Even Potter won't be able to keep up with me."
"That Potter girl plays Quidditch?" Narcissa asked, and if she didn't use any insulting epithets, it was only because they were sewed into her tone.
"Mu-um," Draco said, aggrieved, "I told you this only like a billion times!"
"Is that how you speak to your mother?" Lucius asked coldly, and Draco went pink.
"I apologize, Mother," he said, stiffly formal, deflating in relief only when Lucius permitted him an infinitesimal nod of approval.
The house-elf reappeared with a crack, carrying a carafe of porcelain so delicate, the wine shone dark red through the vessel's sides in the sunlight.
"I'm terribly sorry, my darling," Narcissa told her son, smoothing his hair. "It must have slipped my mind. Well, I don't consider it remotely ladylike. But even when I was at school, Gryffindor girls played on the House teams . . . " Her expression conveyed her explicit thoughts about these girls, and her deep satisfaction not to have been one.
But the girl flew like it was in her blood, with a speed and flair that had sent Minerva clutching at Severus's arm in terror and Flitwick squeaking Gracious Rowena! Goodness me! Severus had watched her drop like a stone through the air, his own stomach shooting into his throat, not seeing how in Hell she was going to manage to pull up—and then she'd toppled lightly onto the grass and coughed up the Snitch into her palm. He remembered Dumbledore's delighted laughter, a sound of pure, unfettered joy. The girl's beaming face when she'd held up the Snitch to stadium-wide cheers had made Severus ache with the knowledge that his choices had stolen Lily's chance of ever seeing this. He had told her photograph about it later, feeling maudlin and foolish, and the photograph had smiled at him.
It always smiled when he talked about the girl. But it wasn't smiling a smile for him, he knew. It was a smile for her daughter, the mirror image of Narcissa's when she looked at her son.
Feeling weary, Severus glanced at Lucius, who was listening to Draco natter about Quidditch with an expression that could only be described as boredly indulgent. Of all the truly dreadful things Severus knew about the man, he couldn't imagine him doing something to endanger his own son.
"I expect you'll make me proud this year, Draco," Lucius said as the Quidditch drone wound down. "I hardly anticipate that your exam scores will again be bested by a girl of no wizarding family whatsoever."
Draco's cheeks flamed, while Narcissa shot Lucius a look like a frozen bradawl; but he was busy tasting his wine.
"Yes, sir," Draco said, still pink. Then his expression darkened to a shade between sulky and menacing, and Severus was reminded that he was growing up. Many things came with adulthood, including an adult's hatred. "I would had last year if that miserable old coot of a Headmaster hadn't stolen the Cup from us to give to Potter and Weasley and that Mudblood Granger."
Severus wondered if he could convince Draco that when he docked him points for saying that word, he was really doing it for showing a lack of Slytherin subtlety.
"We saw them in Diagon Alley today," Draco went on, his pale eyes glinting, "all those stupid Weasleys and Potter with them all covered in soot, don't know what she'd been—"
The house-elf dropped the carafe. Before the echo of breaking porcelain had faded, Lucius had cracked Dobby upside the head with his cane.
"Idiot elf!" he snarled, hitting Dobby on the other side. "That was the '47! There are only five bottles of it left in the cellar!"
"Dobby is sorry, Master!" the elf squealed. "Dobby will not do it again!"
"It's no wonder he can't do anything right, if you beat him around the head like that," Severus observed. "His brain must be addled from rattling around in his skull."
"He's always been useless," Lucius said in disgust. "That had better not have been the last of it you dropped," he told Dobby with a menacing snarl. "Fetch the rest! And if it's ruined . . . " He let the promise of unspeakably terrible punishments linger in the air.
"Thank you, Master Malfoy Sir, thank you," Dobby gasped, and vanished.
"That house elf is so stupid," Draco said. "He can't do anything right."
"It is down to personality," Narcissa said. "My Aunt Walburga had the most delightful creature—wretchedly ugly, of course, but so devoted. You know, I wonder what happened to him? I sometimes wonder if Regulus's death didn't carry him off . . . "
Both Lucius and Draco were clearly uninterested in the deaths of people whom the former had never cared about and the latter hadn't ever met, so she left it at that, with only a single, fleeting glance at Severus. He inclined his head the barest amount to acknowledge it. Walburga Black meant nothing to him, but he'd known Regulus. They still didn't know what had happened to him. If the Dark Lord had killed him, even by proxy, they'd have heard; the Dark Lord had never let his kills suffer anonymity. Severus had always suspected Regulus's murderer had been Sirius Black, which was why it had been no surprise to him when he killed— after his own brother—
The house elf returned, thank God. He almost wished it would do something else foolish; the beating would distract him from thoughts of—
"Oh!" Draco said, bouncing. "And that ponce Lockhart is going to be our Defense professor! What a load of rubbish. He'll probably teach us all to curl our hair. Though Granger doesn't need it, at least," he said, sniggering.
"Defense Against the Dark Arts," Lucius said softly. "If the old Muggle-loving fool Dumbledore really wishes to teach the children to combat darkness, he's failing miserably. Well." His sneer shifted to a smile, but one that was no less unpleasant. "After this year, he may find himself deeply regretting his negligence."
Severus's attention sharpened to a knife point, cold and hard and pinned on the elf's miserable unhappiness, the subtle triumph in Lucius's face, the flicker of wariness in Narcissa's pale eyes.
"Why?" Draco asked eagerly. "What's special about this year?"
"Now, Draco," Lucius told him, gray eyes glinting, "Good things come to those who wait."