There Is A Thin Line Between Hate And Love

Disclaimer: Not mine. Please don‘t sue I don‘t have any money
Pairing: (Eventually) Harry/Draco
Author: Catium
Beta: No one, I read it over my self
Rating: PG – 13.
Word Count: 4229
Genre: Romance/ Drama.
Status: In Progress.
Warnings: Can been seen on the main page
Summary: What happens when that thin line between hate and love starts to disappear? Starts in the Half Blood Prince then moves on to year 7. The Deathly Hallows never happened.
Draco and Snape decide to do the right thing.
Author‘s note: Thanks to the people who have read and special thanks to thrnbrooke who reviewed chapter 2.

There Is A Thin Line Between Hate And Love – Chapter 3. Matter of Life and Death

Draco looked around the tiny little room that was going to be his and Snape’s chamber during their hiding.

A soon as Draco had finished greeting his sister and mother, Narcissa had urged him and Snape into the manor. Going through the entrance hall and going down the stairs, Narcissa lead them to the basement. The basement at Malfoy manor was surprisingly like the dungeons at Hogwart’s, long halls, with stonewalls and lit up with torches, cold, damp and miserable. She led them down a long corridor and at it’s end, there was what looked like a solid stonewall. Narcissa had stopped and utter many spells. Draco had been able to detect lots of locking charms, protection- and silencing charms among the heap. The stonewall slit aside into the wall and Draco, Narcissa, Claudia and Snape stepped through.

When Draco finished looking around he piped up.

“Why can’t we just stay in the guest rooms in the northern wing and hide if anyone comes? This place is bloody miserable. I don’t want to have to stay here for month’s mother.”

Draco turned around and faced his mother. Narcissa sighed and looked at Snape, whom looked like he was just feeling quite at home there. He simply looked at her back and raised his eye brown.

Narcissa sighed again

“Because Draco, that the ministry will come looking for you, probably any minute now, you are now wanted for the murder of Dumbledore, both of you. I don’t think the ministry will have the courtesy to owl a head and let us know their are coming to do a raid. You won’t have any time to hide, so it’s best you just stay in hiding. I know this place isn’t ideal but it will just have to do.”

She ended her speech angrily as in challenging him to argue. Draco looked at Snape, but the only respond he got from him, was Snape walking into the chamber and sitting himself on one of the beds. Draco realized this was a lost battle and resigned himself of the fate of having to stay in a cold, damp little dungeon room, with the most hated professor of Hogwart’s, the most loving servant of the Dark Lord and now the killer of Albus Dumbledore, over the course of the next months, and perhaps. Draco shuttered, the next years!

Narcissa smiled when Draco took a seat on the other bed.

“My and Claudia will be going now, over the next few months I won’t come down here a lot. Claudia has said she wants to bring you food and clean clothes and everything else you will need.”
Claudia interrupted

“I want to spend as much time with you as I can, Draco” and smiled sweetly. Draco smiled back but sadly.

“You just tell her if there is something you want and I will try to get it for you. I just don’t think it’s wise for me to be going in the dungeons all the time, it’s not normal for a grown up spending all his time hanging around here, but if the mansion will be watched they will hopefully take it that she is just playing down here.”

Then Naricssa and Claudia turned around and went out. The stonewall slide back to place and Draco could here all the charms going back up. He was trapped here, and would not be able to get away, unless his mother decided otherwise. He looked around the chamber again.

It was small, really small, with stonewalls, obviously, there were two single beds in there, a rug on the floor between them and two little bedside tables. On the door wall, there was one desk and a chair. Next to Draco’s bed there was a wardrobe with mirror on it. On the wall there was a door, to the bathroom, was Draco’s best guess. There were some books, scrolls, feather pens and ink on the desk and on the bedside tables there was an alarm clock. That was it. Draco stood up and looked in the wardrobe, it was double, on the one side were some of his clothes and he the other some of Snape’s. He went and took a look through the other door, in there was the smallest bathroom Draco had ever seen, a little toilet, above it shelves with some of his necessary grooming products and some of Snape’s, a sink with mirror above and a tiny little shower that was built in, with a hanger.

Draco sighed and went back into the main room, he took a seat on the bed and then a thought came to him that had been lost because of the night events.

Potter! Potter fighting Snape. Potter staring at him and Snape with hatred written all over him, as they Apparated away. That feeling Draco had felt when he had looked Potter in the eyes right before the Apperation. Similar to the feeling Draco felt every time he looked at his baby sister but yet not very so. That feeling that came with a word Draco didn’t want to utter, nor even think. He couldn’t think about this right know. Wouldn’t think about this right know. He could not, not thing about this right know.

“You’re in love with Harry Potter” That irritating little voice inside his head was back and speaking the terrifying truth.

“I’m in love with Harry Potter” Draco repeated in his head. “When the bloody hell had that happened?”

“ I can’t think about this right know” Draco thought

“The sooner you think this through the sooner you can start thinking about more important things” The voice said.

“Well I guess…” Draco started.
“Yes…???” the voice said.

“I guess this has been a long time coming”

“Go on”

“I mean, I have always been really obsessed with Har…Potter…with bloody Potter The-Boy-How-Won’t-Fucking-Die. Why won’t he die??? DIE GODDAMIT DIE!

“You’ve got it out of your system? Good. Keep going. You don’t have time thinking about this all summer. There are more important things. Remember?”

“Yeah ok. It must have started when he refused shaking my hand in first year. Nobody refuses a Malfoy. It was then that I decided to make his and his friend’s life a living hell during school. At first, it was fun. Well fun for me. I got a reaction out of it, Potter would ignore it at first, but I knew he would explode like a firework if I just pressed a little further and it worked every time. Weasley would get pissed right off…you could see it from his ears, they would get all red. Granger would try to get them to ignore it. I didn’t care about Weasley’s and Granger’s reaction. It was his reaction that I wanted. The way his face got all flushed and his green eyes would sparkle with annoyance and he would pay all his attention to me and me alone. Not even Granger could get through to him, when he got really pissed at me. But. Sadly. This era ended all too soon. It reached it’s high peek during our duel in second year. After that it started to diminish and during our third year he looked like he had mastered ignoring me. When he didn’t seek me out after my Dementor scene during that Quidditch match, I was furious. It was like I didn’t matter anymore. I was the big bad in his life until that point and now the bigger bad was Sirius fucking Black. When the big bad Sirius Black was out of the way I thought things would turn back to “normal” but then it was fourth year, that TriWizard tournament and then Diggory died. Oh buhuhu so bleeding sad. Fifth year, it was the DA and Umbitch, I never liked her, you know, I was just trying out a new way to piss Potter off and he just went out on a stroll with Umbridge and left me with Weasley and Loony. Year six, well I didn’t have time to try and get a reaction out of him, but here is the fun part . It looks like he got a little obsessed with me. Trying to find out what I was up to. Well he got a right bit of a shock when he found out. I will never as long as I live forget the look on his face when he stared after me and Snape Apparating away. The final reaction. Now I guess, the next time I see him will be on a battlefield right before he uses the Avada Kedavra curse on me. I can already imagine the look on his face when he does that. Feelings that will be so readable on his face. I guess that in the end this obsession became more than just my hate for him. I don’t know when but I’m guessing, I stopped hating him and started…”

“Yes, you stared what Draco?” The voice urged.

“I started loving him, and it wasn’t until last night that I realized I had crossed this line. This very thin line. It took my brain long enough to catch up with my heart.”

“Yes it did,” the voice said, “and now you can move on to more important things. This love is never going to happen, Draco, the sooner you move on, the better. Harry Potter hates you, Draco, and he’s never going to do anything else than hate you, you helped in killing his mentor and you are his arch enemy. You have to think about more important things, like the fact your sister is going to Hogwarts this autumn and the secret, then there is the Ministry, who might be coming any second. And of course you guilty conscience, you just helped murdering a man Draco, and then you took all the “credit”, But I think priority number one is to get some sleep. You’ve been having a mental conversation with yourself for about 15 minutes now and Snape is starting to stare at you. Be careful not to allow him in your head Draco, but do keep a close watch on his.”

Draco looked up and saw that Snape was in fact starting to stare at him. Draco smirked.

“I’m going to have a lie down and try to sleep for a bit, I’ve been awake for nearly 48 hours now and I’m completely worn out.”

“I quite agree with you, Draco” Snape replied, “A lie down is an idea”
_____________________________________________________________________

Draco woke up with his mother shaking him

“Draco…Draco… Wake up Draco now!”

Draco looked at her sleepily.

“So I’m guessing this means that the Ministry found us?”

“No they didn’t” Narcissa said “They never even started looking”
When Draco heard that he became completely awake in seconds.

“What do you mean, mother?”

“Read this” Narcissa handed him the Daily Prophet.

Draco took the Prophet. On the front page it stood with large letters:

Dumbledore murdered

“This hardly, comes as a shock for neither you nor me mother. Since I witnessed the whole thing” Draco said wondering why his mother was making such a fuss and what she had meant by this whole “the ministry never even started looking” thing

“Read what it says in the article not just the head line”

Draco started reading the article underneath who seemed to be unusually short for this sort of news. It was like neither the Prophet or the Ministry had a clue about what had happened.


“Albus Dumbledore was murdered last night, when a pack of Death Eaters managed to break in to Hogwarts. How they managed that is not know.
Minerva McGonagall, now the Head Mistress of Hogwarts said they haven’t got a clue how the Death Eaters managed to get into Hogwarts and do the things they did. “After they entered Hogwarts, they somehow managed to brake into Dumbledore’s private quarters take him captive, then bring him to the Astronomy tower where they killed him using the Avada Kedavara curse and then they threw his body down from the tower. They then tried to escape but the alarm that sounded woke up the staff, who fought them in the corridors near the Astronomy towers. We were too few and they overpowered us and then ran. Their orders must have been very clear. Go in. Kill Dumbledore. No one else. Go out. Which is exactly what they did. We do not know who the Death Eaters were that killed Dumbledore since of course they were wearing masks.” Head Mistress McGonagall said.
The Ministry has already interrogated everyone in the staff who were in the fight and no one has a clue how this happened. The case is considered closed.
Albus Dumbledore, like so many before him, was murdered by unknown Death Eaters. His funeral is set for next week.

Draco finished reading and was amazed. This was clearly a trap the Ministry must have had the Prophet print this too lure them out. Surely McGonagall would have told them what happened. She had never been too fond of either him nor Snape.

“Well, this is clearly a trap.” Snape whom Narcissa had woken up and shown the article had already put in words what Draco was thinking.

“My thoughts exactly” Draco said.

“We will still stay here Draco. The Ministry is clearly hoping that we will reveal ourselves and not go into too much hiding if they think, that we think, that they don’t know what happened”

“Clearly”

Weeks passed by with agonizingly slow paste.
Draco spent most of his time reading, writing and listening to his music, since his daily routine was out of the question in this tiny little room, and thinking.

Mostly about the fact that he had murdered Dumbledore. Well or at least been a big part in helping murdering him, and his conscience tortured him every single day. There was no way in hell he was ever going to be able to redeem himself from this, no matter what he did and surly not when he was in the service of the Dark Lord.
The more he thought about this the more he wished that he would have accepted Dumbledore’s offer of joining the light side. The more he wished he could quit the Death Eaters and go to the light side and be the first Malfoy to do the right thing. It might be dangerous and completely stupid and he might be dead in a week, but it would be a lot better than this guilt.

Then there also was ,like, fat chance in hell that the Order would ever believe him in wanting to join the light side. They would probably think that he had been sent by Voldemort and was supposed to be the new spy just like Snape had down so many years ago. Claiming he had a quilt for his actions.

Did Snape feel guilty? That thought crossed Draco’s head one day when he was thinking about things. Snape was asleep and Draco decided that a little peek at Snape’s thoughts and feelings would be in order.

From that point Draco used every chance he got to use Legilimensy on Snape. What he discovered was amazing.

Snape felt guilty for killing Dumbledore. He had been on the light side and the Order side the whole time. When about a year ago, Dumbledore had discovered plans in murdering him and that he, Draco, was supposed to do it, he had called Snape for a meeting. Dumbledore had told Snape to do everything in his might to make sure that Draco did not murder him. He had told Snape that Draco was a very important part of how this war was going to work out in the end and he would not be able to play that part if he killed him. Then there were the sentences that made Draco think that Dumbledore really must have been mad:

“If it comes down to it, Severus my dear boy” Dumbledore said “Then you have to kill me and make sure that Tom gets the news that Draco killed me. With any means necessary. Draco has to stay innocent in order to play his part in this war and that part is with us. If he is backed into a corner and has no other way than killing me, then you have to take action and do it for him. Tom has to thing Draco did it or otherwise Draco is going to get killed. Then Draco is probably going to get incorporated to the Death Eaters and you two will go into hiding, since you are going to be wanted for my murder.
When in hiding you have to find a way to make Draco want to join the Order. I don’t think that’s going to be a problem since Draco doesn’t want to join the Dark Lord or become a murderer. You are going to have to convince Draco that his family, his sister and mother are going to be save. I don’t think he cares that much about his father. Then you, him and his mother and sister are going to have to go to the Order and convince them. Show them this memory of this meeting. Do not fight them when the use Legilimency or Veritaserum and tell Draco to do the same thing. Everything has to work out. Draco has to join the light side. It’s vital to the war. To our victory over Tom Riddle. Do you promise me this?”
“I promise Albus” Snape replied

“Wow”. Draco thought after seeing this memory. “The old coot really did know and think of everything didn’t he?”


Few more weeks passed away. In the beginning of July, Draco and Snape had a visit from both Narcissa and Claudia, whom had been a frequent visitor to their room and had helped pass the time along. Claudia came bursting in and ran and hugged Draco all the while screaming on the top of her voice.

“I got in. I got in. I got into Hogwarts. 1st of September. Platform 9 ¾. 1st of September. 9 ¾ . “

“Congratulations Claudia” Snape said.

“Thank you uncle Severus” Claudia ran to Snape and hugged him

“Yes congratulations” Draco said.
Draco looked at Narcissa and saw the worrying in her eyes. Her eyes just scremed. The Secret. The Secret is going to get out and everybody will know. Your father’s going to freak out when the news reach him, brake out and…

“Don’t worry mother”. Draco said. “I’ve got a plan. Can I speak to Severus alone for a minute mother and Claudia?”

“Yes” both Narcissa and Claudia replied and went out.

“What is it Draco?” Snape asked

Draco t ook a deep breath.

“Severus. I know.”

When Snape didn’t show any responses Draco continued.

“I know. About everything. Where your loyalty really lies. About why you didn’t allow me to try and kill Dumbledore in peace. Why you lied to our Lord. Everything.”

The little color that was in Snape’s face drained out and Snape went as white as a sheet.

“How?” he asked

“Legilimency” Draco replied. “I’ve been using Legilimency.
”
Draco saw that Snape’s face get red and that he was about to burst. When Snape opened his mouth Draco screemed.

“NO WAIT PLEASE! It…it wasn’t like that. I…I feel it too. The guilt. I wish that I’ve joined the Order when I had the chance and I would have never joined Him, our Lord. I wish I’ve rather let him kill me then to agree to do this. Watching Dumbledore get killed, joining Him. Getting this thing branded into my arm like I’m some kind of cattle.”

With those words Draco yanked up his left sleeve and showed Snape his mark, which was looking horrible. Obviously. But the skin around it was no longer red.

“I want to get redemption. I want us to go to the Order, right now. Tell them truth and beg for mercy, perhaps I can become a spy just like you. We can both spy. What do you say? I know you didn’t want to do this but Dumbledore gave you no choice told you that I had to stay innocent or something like that. I couldn’t become a murderer. We just do what Dumbledore told you. He has been right so far hasn’t he?
We just keep following his plan that he told you about. Go to the Order, tell them the truth and let them Veritaserum and Legilimency the hell out of us just so they will believe us and then we will ask them to protect my mother and sister. We will spy and at least get some of our guilty conscience off our backs and defeat Him and live happily ever after or something like that. Or if that doesn’t happen at least we will be remembered if we die as the good guys. Not the guys who killed the greatest wizard since Merlin. What do you say Severus?”

Draco looked at Snape with both fear and hope in his eyes. “Oh please for Merlin’s sake” Draco thought.

Snape stared back at him put his face in his hand and then ran them through his hair. He sighed and looked up towards the sealing like in silent prayer.

“All right then Draco”. He said “Let’s do this then. Redemption and eternal glory or some kind of heroic war shit like that. To hell with it all. Let’s do it. Call your mother and sister in. We will tell them the plan and then go and get them packed and you will pack too, we leave in an hour.”

An hour later Claudia, Narcissa and Draco were packed and ready to go. Snape, who hadn’t brought anything with him to begin with, Draco noticed looked awed when he saw the share amount of trunks the three Malfoy’s were bringing with them.

“What on earth is this?” he asked.

“I told the kids we should only bring our clothes that we don’t want to leave behind and some personal belongings they want to have with them. Be glad I didn’t let them have their way and bring all of their stuff then we would have needed a pair or two of extra hands.” Narcissa replied and looked like it was nothing out of the ordinary to three persons having 10 trunks of stuff with them when doing, literally, an escape from Dark Lord and death.

“All right then.” Snape replied looking completely shocked “We will just shrink them then.” he turned around and Draco heard him muttering to himself

“What on earth did I expect from a bunch of Malfoy’s? Them to travel light and take only three pair of pants and couple of T-shirts with them. I’m not escaping the Dark Lord with the Weasley’s. They are bloody Malfoy’s; it doesn’t matter if you are dead just as long as you’re looking good and fashionable.”

They shrunk the trunks and walked to the edge of the Malfoy’s grounds. There Narcissa grabbed Claudia and told her to hold on tight. Then they all as one Apparated.

When Draco saw anything again he was standing on what looked like an ordinary muggle street looking at a block of apartment buildings. He looked at Snape with a huge questioning mark on his face. Snape handed him a note that was written in a fine spider like writing which he hadn’t seen before. Then Snape handed his mother and sister the note.

The note said:
Nr. 12 Grimmauld Place.

Draco heard a strange noise and when he looked up a building had sprung up in the middle of the block. A three story high house looking old and run-down but also looking like it had been glorious in its younger days. He looked at his mother and sister and saw from the look on their face that they were also seeing the house.

“Is this the Order of the Phoenix head quarters?”

“Yes it is” Snape replied “It used to be in your aunt’s belonging. Now Potter owns it.”

“This is my father’s sister’s house, Draco.” Narcissa said, “This is the noble and most ancient house of Black mansion as the Black family was called.”

“Oh” was all Draco managed to said.
“Are we going to stand here all day and discuss family, or are we going to do this?” Snape asked.

They all walked over the street and up the steps, stopping in front of the door. Draco was going to pull the door bell string but Snape stopped him.

“Knock” he said.

Draco knocked on the door. Then they waited. After a while Draco heard footsteps coming down the hall and he then the door started to open. When they were fully open Draco was looking at the very surprised face of one Remus Lupin. Then Lupin seemed to gene his senses and grabbed his wand. He was looking even more confused when neither Snape, Draco nor Narcissa grabbed their wands and it only got worse when Draco noticed, that he had spotted Claudia standing behind Narcissa.
Snape then started to speak with low voice and not sounding like himself.

“Hello Remus, how are you doing? Would you please, so kindly let us in? This is a matter of life and death. “

TBC

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