Centre of Twilight

Snape heard Harry’s final words to Draco and winced before hurrying even faster down the corridors towards his rooms; careless in his haste, of what students or other members of staff might think.

He’d been in Dumbledore’s office with Minerva while the Headmaster had interviewed Seamus Finnegan and Blaise Zabini. Blaise, he’d observed, had remained cool and silent; giving nothing away and yet not denying any of the accusations flying his way.

Mid way through the Headmaster’s speech concerning the two students’ punishment, Snape had heard Harry quizzing Draco over a bottle of vodka. Then, painfully aware of the raw emotions flying around, he’d made his excuses as fast as he could and had begun hurrying through the school to prevent the two boys from annihilating each other or the school around them.

And now Harry had just finished with Draco and Snape received a gut-full of shared emotions from his ward. Draco was in pain; was resentful and was so angry he didn’t know what to do first.

‘Draco…wait…’ Snape ordered, taking the steps down into the dungeons, two at a time. ‘Don’t do anything rash.’

‘Rash? What like, get a girl so smashed she passes out and then have a hissy-fit because your cologne got spilled?’ Harry demanded, cutting in.

‘Oh, shut up, Potter! The Mudblood’s hardly dying, mores the pity!’ Draco shot back.

“That’s enough, both of you!” Snape exploded, finally reaching his office and storming through into his sitting room. There, he found Draco looking torn between wanting to walk out and wanting to march back into the bathroom and start a real fight.

‘He started it!’ Harry’s telepathic voice emerged from the bathroom, ‘And tell him to drop the ‘Mudblood’ bullshit! He sounds just like his father!’

‘COME OUT HERE AND TELL ME YOURSELF!’ Draco bellowed back, two high points of colour now staining his cheeks.

At the sound of angry footsteps, Snape rounded on Draco whilst moving into position to head off an exchange of spells and hexes.

“I’ll face you anytime you choose!” Harry shouted, appearing in the doorway, looking furious.

“Harry, that’s enough!” Snape retorted over his shoulder and was about to add something further when he felt a tiny shift in his own magical ability. His dark eyes widened as he realised that Harry, perhaps unconsciously, was drawing power around himself; preparing for a fight.

What was more, Snape realised, Draco didn’t have a hope of contending with Harry. This magic, this power, was once Harry’s and had been shared out with the help of the Nameless spell. Now, however, it seemed that Harry could reclaim some of that power in what his body classed to be an emergency. Perhaps it was all tied with a surge of adrenalin and the natural ‘fight or flight’ instinct.

Whatever it was, though, Snape had to act fast.

“Draco, take yourself off for a bit.” He instructed urgently, “Go to the kitchens and ask the house elves for strong, black coffee. If anyone needs to sober up, it’s you! You’ll be quite safe – the Headmaster has Zabini and Finnegan. And Filch has been sent to collect Theodore, Dex and Millicent.”

Draco frowned, clearly not understanding. ‘You’re sending me away?’ He stared incredulously at Snape, ‘What did I do? Send Potter away. Send him back to Gryffindor sodding tower!’

‘Draco, that’s not the point. Think, don’t you feel it? It isn’t safe to send Harry out there right now – not in the state he’s in. Go to the kitchen and wait for me there. I’ll calm Harry down, get Miss Granger sobered up and then I’ll come for you.’

‘Yeah?’ Draco sneered, his lip curling. ‘Well, don’t put yourself out on my account.’

‘Draco!’

But the blond youth had already turned and walked away, keeping his eyes firmly on the door ahead of him.

Snape tried once to speak to him, sending a telepathic message of appeasement but Draco had firmly blocked all means of communication; just as he had on Monday following his last fight with Harry.

A heavy silence hung within the room and within their minds before Draco slammed the door behind him. Then, turning very slowly, Snape looked at Harry and attempted to make mental contact with him whilst assessing his physical condition.

Harry’s skin was slightly flushed and shone with a thin layer of sweat. His eyes were glazed and he appeared to be panting a little. The magical energy around him was even more alarming, though.

“Harry,” Snape began, his tone of voice low and steady. “Harry, you need to let the magic go. There’s no one to fight, you don’t need that power now. Let it go.”

Harry blinked a couple of times and then looked back at Snape, his expression becoming anguished all of a sudden.

“It didn’t work!” he almost wailed, sounding panicky, “The Nameless spell, it didn’t work – I can feel Caramon; he’s right here.” He gestured with his right hand towards the unseen, incorporeal energy that he’d once envisaged as a hulking beast in order to gain better control over it.

“No, Harry – no!” Snape shook his head urgently, “The spell did work but you drew the energy back to yourself when you thought you’d have to fight Draco.” A sound from the bathroom drew his attention then and he sidestepped around Harry. A moment later and he re-emerged with Hermione leaning wearily on his arm.

“I need to get Miss Granger back to her dormitory,” he said, looking annoyed and concerned at the same time. “Exactly how much did she have to drink?”

“Don’t know.” Harry replied, shaking his head. He frowned for a moment and then Snape felt the shared energy return once more. It was surprising how quickly he’d come to get used to it.

“Bloody Malfoy started her on the brandy,” Harry continued then, “and then he gave her sodding vodka and orange juice. Probably gave her a magical suggestion too.” He muttered.

Snape grunted, “Yes, well, you could have stepped in at any point, you know and halted this before it turned into a full-scale war.” When Harry hung his head in a silent act of contrition, he sighed and said quietly, “Wait here for me while I take Miss Granger back.”

“How are you going to explain how she came to be drunk?” Harry asked softly.

“I won’t.” Snape replied and then drew his wand and pointed it at Hermione’s head. “Sobrietus!”

The effect was pretty much instantaneous. Hermione swayed on her feet and brought a hand to her head and instant sobriety hit her with a solid thud.

“Ohhh!” she groaned, sinking her head into her hands, “I feel horrible.” She then appeared to realise just whom she was leaning upon and pulled herself onto her own two feet with a little jolt. “Professor Snape, I’m sorry.” She gasped, flushing.

“I’ll consider letting it go…just this once.” Snape retorted coldly, his dark eyes flat and dangerous. Harry, however, had lived with the man for far too long and recognised when he was teasing. “However,” Snape continued, “I must ask that you tell no one of the occurrences of this evening. The Headmaster has yet to decide on Zabini and Finnegan’s fates and it would be unwise, I think, to tell others what happened here.”

In a way, this seemed rather unfair to Harry: Snape was asking Hermione to keep her silence and disclose nothing of Draco’s indiscretion.

His friend, however, was still too groggy and hungover to do anything but nod vaguely and look apologetic.

“I think I broke some things in the bathroom.” She said sadly.

“Nothing that can’t be fixed.” Harry assured her, privately nursing an inner pain over his row with Draco. Tentatively, he sent out an enquiring thought but came up against a firm, icy barrier.

‘Leave him alone for a while.’ Snape advised, even as he led Hermione out to the dungeon corridor. The door closed behind them, leaving Harry alone in the suddenly silent quarters. Without the once-constant presence of Draco in his head, he felt insufferably lonely all of a sudden.

*~*~*

Determined not to do as he was told, Draco didn’t go to the kitchens. Instead, he went in the opposite direction and found himself in the library.

It was quiet here and it seemed at first to Draco that he was entirely alone. However, after pushing the heavy door shut with a bang behind him and stalking past the rows of tables, he found that he had been gravely mistaken.

Sitting at a table, illuminated by one softly glowing light, was Greg Goyle. His moon-shaped face was looking down at an open textbook and his low, wide forehead was creased with perplexity. Hearing Draco’s footsteps, though, he raised his head and watched his former lover’s cautious approach with small, wary eyes.

Feeling rejected and abandoned by the two most important people in his life, Draco made the conscious step of trying to rebuild a bridge to his one-time friend.

‘What are you reading?’ he wrote in the air with his wand, coming to a halt at the far end of the table.

Goyle sighed and pushed the book around and towards Draco without a word. It was a Transfiguration book and it seemed that Goyle was struggling with the theory behind Animagi.

‘We studied this, years ago,’ Draco wrote, moving round the table to return the book. ‘How come you’re looking it up now?’

Goyle sighed again and shrugged. Then, in his low, raspy voice, his replied, “McGonagall set me a test. Got to take it tomorrow. If I fail, I’m out.”

Draco frowned and sat down, uninvited. ‘How come? You’ve been managing, haven’t you?’

Goyle shrugged again and gave a little shake of his head. “Blaise has been helping me – letting me copy his work and stuff. But Blaise is mixed up in some bad stuff and…when I found out what he did to you…” He dropped his gaze to the table between them.

‘So you stopped associating with him and, consequently, your marks are slipping.’ Draco concluded. He had to wait while Goyle struggled with ‘associating’ and ‘consequently’ but he found that he really had missed the slow, gentle way that his friend had on these occasions. He swallowed then and, finding the courage, wrote: ‘So you weren’t involved in the attack then? When the House hexed me and handed me over to my father for punishment?’

After a couple of minutes, during which Goyle read the text slowly and laboriously, he looked up at Draco with a look of stunned innocence and shook his head. “Never.” He croaked and then cleared his throat, “I knew what they did and…” his eyes slid away briefly, “…there were more people in it than I thought but they thought you’d betrayed us. They thought you’d sold out to Gryffindor.”

And so did you, Draco thought and reached out to touch Goyle’s thickset arm, feeling the solid muscle under his fingers.

“Did you sell out?” Goyle asked then, his eyes on Draco’s face.

When the blond Slytherin shook his head with open honesty, his former lover smiled with a simple pleasure that touched his heart. So it was over with Harry and Snape had clearly come down on the git’s side; but Draco told himself that none of it mattered because he had Greg back.

‘Can I help you prepare for this exam, then?’ He wrote and, stealing a glance at his friend’s notes, resigned himself to a sleepless night of studying.

*~*~*

“Severus,”

The voice accosted him as he was heading back to his rooms, having just delivered Hermione to her common room. He turned, peering into the shadows and then recoiled when Remus Lupin emerged.

“Lupin.” He greeted the man with a slight curl to his lip, thinking that this was the last thing Harry needed. He felt the young man stir at these thoughts but, before he could reassure him, Remus responded.

“Severus, I’m afraid I need to ask a favour of you.”

Snape raised a querying eyebrow and turned slightly, indicating that the former DADA professor should follow him.

“Is it the potion?” he asked over his shoulder. He spoke softly in the quiet, empty corridor.

“Sort of.” Remus replied, “I’m afraid I need another supply.”

Snape shook his head and tutted, “Really, Lupin, you should be more careful. As it happens, I have an entire cauldronful – it’s impossible to make the potion in small quantities – but what if I’d thrown it away? There wouldn’t be time to make more. What happened? Did you spill it?”

“No, no.” Remus hurried to follow him into his classroom. He closed the door and gave the Potions master a shrewd, assessing look. “We – I mean, I -”

“Spit it out, man!” Snape snapped, “I know all about Black and his rescue.” But Harry didn’t, he thought in a panic! However, on sending out a searching thought, he felt Harry to be busy with cleaning up the broken glass in the bathroom and too engrossed to be listening to this conversation.
“Quite why we wanted Black back, I do not know!” he added softly.

“I wanted him back.” Remus said very softly and then straightened his shoulders. “All right, Severus, I’ll get to the point. We have a young man staying with us at the moment. And he’s a werewolf too.”

Snape sucked in a breath of surprise and regarded the other man with cold, black eyes. “Another werewolf? You bit him?”

“What?” Remus gasped, “No! Bloody hell, Severus! No, of course not!” He pushed a hand through his hair and paced across the floor. “He came to us at the beginning of this week. He’s in trouble – big trouble! – and, well, I couldn’t just kick him out again.”

“You realise that the two of you will have to be separated for the duration of the full moon?” Snape asked clinically. He retrieved a screw top jar from a shelf and began to decant the potion into it.

“I know.” Remus replied. It had been sheer torture leaving his beloved Sirius alone with Thomas and the inner wolf had raged and howled against leaving his mate with another werewolf.

“Well, so long as you know what you’re letting yourself in for.” Snape responded and handed the sealed jar to him.

“How’s Harry?” Remus asked then, “I know it’s a bit late but I was hoping to go and see him. Is he in the common room?”

“That’s…probably not a good idea right now.” Snape replied carefully, aware of Harry’s voice in his head. Clearly, the cleaning up was all done.

‘Please, Severus, I don’t want to see him. I don’t want to see anyone…except Draco. Find him for me?’

“Is he all right?” Remus frowned, looking concerned. “He hasn’t suffered a relapse? Albus said that the Nameless spell worked well…”

“He’s fine.” Snape lied smoothly, “A little stressed with the workload of a sixth year, perhaps.”

There was a long pause then and Remus gazed thoughtfully at the Potions master. “What stress?” he asked at last, “It’s his final week before the Christmas holiday; surely he doesn’t have that much to do?” And then, seeming to make a guess, he said, “Severus, you’re not…”

“What?” Snape eyed him warily. Could the werewolf guess his feelings towards the younger man?

Remus sighed. “I’m sorry, it’s wrong of me to think it, but…well, you’re not overloading Harry with too much work, are you? I mean, it must be awfully tempting to give him additional assignments, just to keep him out of your hair.”

Snape drew himself up to his full height. “As a matter of fact,” he growled, “Potter has been thoroughly molly-coddled and generally wrapped in cotton wool ever since his rescue.”

“Ah,” Remus nodded knowingly, “and you don’t approve?”

“Goodnight, Lupin.” Snape responded curtly and pointed towards the door.

*~*~*

‘Has he gone?’ Harry’s voice asked from his bedroom as soon as he heard Snape enter his sitting room.

‘Lupin? Yes, he’s gone.’

‘And Draco?’ Harry asked then, padding silently on bare feet into the room. He wore bottle green pyjamas and evidently hadn’t slept a wink, despite being in bed. ‘Did you find him?’

Snape heaved a long sigh and sank down into his chair by the fire. “I found him,” he murmured with a nod, “but he doesn’t want to come home.”

The anguish in Harry’s face was unbearable, although Snape only caught a glimpse of it before the young man turned to head straight back to his room.

After finding that Draco wasn’t in the kitchens, Snape had located his ward by following the direction of his thoughts. Upon entering the library, Snape had found Draco sitting beside Goyle, of all people, working on a stack of Transfiguration notes and scrolls. When asked, Draco had rather coldly informed his guardian that he would probably be working all night and, even if he wasn’t, wouldn’t set foot in these quarters, so long as Harry was here.

“Shall I go?” Harry asked, making Snape jump. Lost in his thoughts, he hadn’t realised that the dark haired youth had returned once more.

“No.” He shook his head, “Not unless you want to. Draco’s just…” he paused, thinking…feeling. “He’s confused. He has feelings for you but he isn’t used to sharing and all the time you had your back turned on your old friends, he was quite happy because he had you all to himself.”

“But now Hermione’s my friend again,” Harry surmised, coming to sit in the other chair, “and Draco doesn’t like it. He doesn’t want me to see my old friends anymore.”

“He doesn’t want to share you.” Snape corrected.

“He didn’t have a problem sharing me with you.” Harry pointed out and then struggled to hide his memory of Draco’s hopes to get both Snape and Harry into bed. Judging by the uncomfortable way in which Snape shifted position, however, it was evident that the Potions master had seen the memory nonetheless.

“Perhaps that’s why.” Snape said then, his eyes on the floor. “Perhaps because he feelings for me too, he can bear for you to be with me.”

“Perhaps.” Harry whispered.

Right there, right then, he wanted so much to crawl across to sit on the floor at
Snape’s feet – just as Draco so often did – and to be comforted by the man’s fingers in his hair – again, just as he did with Draco. Instead, however, he stood up and headed out to the kitchenette to get some water.

Then, with glass in hand, he padded back to bed, dropping a companionable hand on the Potion master’s shoulder as he passed.

*~*~*

Harry lay awake, tortured by the scent of Draco on his sheets and pillow, yet despairing without his lover beside him. And over and over, his own angry, thoughtless words repeated themselves within his head.

‘You know what, Malfoy? I give up. I don’t know what you expect of me; I don’t know what you’re problem is. And, quite frankly, I don’t care anymore! Just get out of my sight. Leave me along; leave my friends alone and maybe – just maybe – I won’t hex your arse from here to next week!’

Harry gave an inward grimace, damning himself for being intolerant, for being too unforgiving. He should have realised how Draco felt!

With a soft gasp, he recalled the expression on Draco’s face as he’d stared at him. Mere moments before he’d firmly closed his expression, the blond man’s eyes had been dark with absolute pain and anguish.

‘You want me to go?’ He’d demanded incredulously.

And Harry had been too angry, too caught up in worrying about Hermione to realise just how badly he was hurting him.

‘Then it’s over.’ Draco’s words hit home like a physical shock.

It was over. In the heat of the moment, he’d broken up with the first true love of his life. Never mind his silly, childish infatuation with Cho, last year; and never mind this recurring sense of…whatever it was…with Snape. He had loved Draco – still loved him – but now it was gone and all because he hadn’t been able to keep his stupid temper!

‘Draco?’ He sent the thought out once again, hoping that this time his lover might answer.

‘Draco, please? I’m sorry. Come back.’

He lay, curled beneath the bedclothes with Draco’s pillow pulled tight against his chest. And when the only response was a solid, black wall of non-communication, he screwed up his face and let out a strangled wail of grief and sorrow.

*~*~*

In the library, surrounded by even more books and scrolls, Draco leaned back in his chair and rubbed wearily at his eyes. The effects of the alcohol had more or less passed, leaving him feeling just fuzzy and out-of-sorts. He was tired though – physically and emotionally exhausted and, as his energy slipped away, so the barrier between himself and Harry began to drop.

‘Draco, please? I’m sorry. Come back.’

With a silent snarl, he shook his head a little and forced himself to sit upright again. He looked at Goyle’s notes, written in the large, blotchy style reminiscent of a small child’s. The text, however, was quite correct and it seemed that his friend was finally getting to grips with the theory.

‘And you know how to perform the actual spells.’ Draco wrote. ‘So, if McGonagall asks, you can demonstrate, can’t you?’

For a few seconds, Goyle just sat and stared down at Draco’s words and then at his notes. Then, with a little spark of hope in his eyes, he nodded and offered a shy smile.

Draco began to return it but was caught unawares by a yawn. And as it took him, so the barrier slipped once again and he heard Harry’s despairing wail within his head. Draco closed his eyes for a moment, struggling not to run straight back to his lover. But this had been Harry’s choice!

Harry had chosen the Mudblood over him. Harry had finished it with Draco. And Harry had sent Severus here to fetch him back! No. Potter could stay there and stew in his own misery and, in the meantime, Draco would…would…

He looked sideways at Goyle for a moment and then wrote: ‘Greg, have you got anything to drink? Whisky? Vodka?’

“There’s a bottle of Tokay in the dormitory,” Goyle suggested softly. “My aunt told me to buy it for my father but,” he frowned, “after what he did to you, I don’t think I want to give him anything for Christmas.”

Draco smiled, touched by his friend’s words. Goyle’s mother had died a long time ago, when Goyle was very small, and he had since been brought up by his father and his father’s sister. Draco had met Goyle’s Aunt Bernadette a few times in the past and had decided early on that this was a woman not to cross.

Now, however, the idea of drinking the Tokay seemed very enticing.

“The other’s will be asleep now.” Goyle said, “If you like, you can come back with me and we’ll share it. I think I deserve to celebrate.”

‘Not too much for you.’ Draco smiled, writing in the air before gathering up the books and placing them on a stacking trolley. ‘You mustn’t have a hangover tomorrow.’

Goyle sniggered and collected all his notes together. Then, just as they were about to leave, he caught Draco in his heavy set arms and pulled him in close.

“Thanks,” he murmured and pressed a bold kiss against Draco’s mouth.

*~*~*

Immersed in a flood of emotions from both Harry and Draco, Snape leaned his head back against his chair and closed his eyes.

He felt the slow burning fire of Draco’s anger, fuelled mostly by his sense of rejection. Mixed in with that resentment was a wave of confusion following Goyle’s kiss and a sense of renewed pain at Harry’s yearning to apologise and make amends.

Meanwhile, he was aware of Harry; lying awake and desolate without Draco. Perhaps because the dark-haired man was closer, Snape could feel Harry’s emotions that much clearer. But then, perhaps it was simply because Harry was loudly broadcasting in the hope that he might break through to Draco.

‘Harry.’ He sent the thought out gently, ‘Get some sleep. We’ll talk about this tomorrow.’

‘I can’t.’ The response came with a growl of irritation. ‘I want to sleep but I can’t. This room, this bed…everything is just missing Draco. I want him back!’

Snape sighed and pushed himself wearily to his feet before stepping softly into Harry’s room.

“But you can’t have him,” he said in a quiet, even voice. “He isn’t ready to come back; you hurt his feelings and now he feels rejected and resentful.”

Harry sat up, pushing absently at his tousled fringe. “I didn’t mean it. I’ll take it all back and I’ll never see any of my old friends again!”

“Harry -”

“No! I mean it! Please, Severus – go and find him for me! Make him listen. Tell him I’m sorry!” In his pleading, Harry had scrambled forward until he was kneeling on top of the bedclothes, with his feet tangled in the sheets. He looked up at the Potions master then as something occurred to him. “Where’s Draco sleeping, anyway?”

Snape sighed again and shook his head, turning back towards the door. He didn’t want to be a part of this and told himself he simply couldn’t stand all the melodrama; although secretly, he couldn’t bear to see the two men to whom he was mentally and emotionally linked, being so desperately unhappy.

“Severus?” Harry pressed. “Please…tell me.”

“He’s with Goyle.” Snape said softly, staring at the patch of brighter light coming from the sitting room.

“Goyle?” Harry stared at him, “What, just like that? One second, he’s telling me he’s in love with me and then, the next second he’s back with Goyle? What happened to loyalty?”

Snape very nearly snapped, responding that Harry’s own loyalties had been in question when he’d dumped Draco. But that would be unfair. After all, Draco had pushed Harry to the very limits…

“I don’t know, Harry. I don’t know that he’s resumed his former relationship with Goyle. I only know that he’s sleeping in the Slytherin dormitory tonight.” He turned then and looked at the picture of misery sitting hunched on the bed. “Would you like me to make you a sleeping draught?” he asked after a moment.

Harry nodded dully and then looked at him with gratitude in his wide, dark green eyes.