Redeem Me

DISCLAIMER: Warning! I make no claim to any property of J.K. Rowling's, and am in no way profiting by this. I do offer her my sincerest thanks for allowing us this garden of the mind in which we play. Further Warning! This story...and likely any I ever write…are dominated by gay themes and characters. That's how it is, if this in any way makes you uncomfortable...do not read further.

Redeem Me…by Samayel

Chapter 51: Possibilities


Severus Snape opened his eyes and turned to face the Floo directly, knowing full well what he would see in the flickering green. He delivered a gaze that would have withered flesh on anyone thinner-skinned than Draco.

“Mr. Malfoy. It would seem that I was mistaken in leaving directions to my coordinates at Hogwarts. I had trusted that it would remain confidential, and unused save for the most serious of emergencies. You scarcely qualify as such. May I ask what possessed you to believe, even for a moment, that the sight of you in my Floo would be a welcome one?”

His tone was so acidic that, had it been liquid, it would have sizzled as the words hit the floor. Despite years of association with his former head of house, Draco gulped, suddenly uncertain about Snape’s willingness to help, despite Dumbledore’s assurances.

“Sir…professor…I have to talk to you. Please believe me when I say it’s serious. I wouldn’t have dared bother you for anything trivial…I swear it. May I step through?”

Severus frowned. It was actually hard to tell that he did so, since the difference between his traditional look of scorn and a full frown was very faint indeed. He frowned, and it was only by the thinnest of margins that he managed to accept the notion of listening to Draco Malfoy speak again. His eyes narrowed with apprehension.

’Incomprehensible. I cannot believe I’m actually saying this…but…’

“Enter…if you must. Be brief, be concise, and if you can manage to do so promptly afterwards…be gone.”

Draco stepped through the Floo and emerged into Severus’ Stuttgart flat with a puff of enchanted green fire and soot. It was as spartan as anyone might have imagined, more like a monk’s cell than a residence. Aside from an elementary kitchen in one corner, overwhelmed by brewing supplies, only the shelf of books near the narrow bed indicated that the rooms were anything more than a place to sleep. A proper potions master had no business in a place like this. Draco dusted himself off and wrung his hands nervously. Snape would take careful handling, and giving him offense was almost impossible to avoid, but Draco hoped to at least avoid being rejected out of hand.

“Sir…professor. I thought…I thought I should apologize first, but…”

Snape interrupted him coldly, with an arched eyebrow and a chill tone.

“First. I am not a professor. Not now. There is no point in reiterating the cause of that change of status…I’m sure you know it well enough. Second. You thought? That alone suggests a change of epic proportions in you. Third. If you wish to apologize, I shall hear it, but I admit to a desperate and likely morbid curiosity about what you intend to apologize for…especially given that you term your arrival as caused by an emergency, and will likely ask of me some boon or favor. Your optimism must be boundless to embrace such a notion, but your courage is laudable…if misspent. Go on. Amuse me.”

Draco sighed. This was hopeless. He might as well spill it all and be done with it, since it made little difference what he said. Snape would have him out of here as soon as he was done laughing in Draco’s face, and that would be an end to that.

“Sir…there’s a letter coming for you. I don’t know when, but soon. It’s from Harry. He’s going to ask you to come back to England…to help me. I need help…and it has to be your help. I came to ask you in person…to say yes. I know you haven’t any reason to, but I had to ask…and tell you I’m sorry. I should have trusted you. I know you tried to help, but I didn’t listen and I’ve paid for it. You don’t know how I’ve paid for it. I…things happened…and…I…I’m not…well. A few months after you left I was starving. No one…no one would even talk to me. It wasn’t a very good time, but it got worse.

Hyde-Pratt found me, and he was the first person in weeks who’d been willing to speak to me for more than a minute. He offered me a meal, with some others who were Marked…and outcast. It was my uncle Rodolphus…and MacNair. They drugged me, kept me prisoner for months, broke my wand…and there was more. You must know what they were like. I didn’t…until then. They kept me almost a year. They wouldn’t let me die. Then one of them was seen somewhere and they had to move. They pushed me out of a car in Muggle London. Some people found me and kept me alive enough to get around, and I…I had to make my way back to Diagon Alley. The Weasley family took me in…sanctuary. It took a long time…weeks…to get me well…and take the scars off of me, but they did it. I have a job, and something…something like a life, but I need help.

I can’t forget what happened. There are parts I can’t even say out loud. I still can’t sleep right…can’t stand being touched…by anyone. I wake up trying to keep myself from screaming. It’s too much. I can’t take it. Harry…Harry found something that could help. Advanced Legilimency. He said he could build shields around my memories. Not take them away, just make it so I could remember them without it hurting…control them. I can’t let him do it. I can’t tell you why…unless you agree to help me, but I can’t let Harry see into my mind. I don’t want him to see…any of it…or other things.

You’re the best Legilimens Harry knows of anywhere. Only a master at Legilimency could help me. I’m sorry for all of the things I did, but I know I can’t change any of them. I just want to start a new life…and I’ll never be able to do that…like this. I wouldn’t even ask if…if Dumbledore’s portrait hadn’t told me to try. Please…please help me.”

Snape listened impassively, while Draco shuffled and stammered through his confessions, and through his pleas. Dark eyes flicked over every movement, reading the boy’s body language, taking in every tiny detail. It was clear that Draco had changed quite a bit in the last year or so, and his words had a raw sincerity that the arrogant brat of yesteryear could never have faked.

Oh yes…Draco had been bright in school, but horribly flawed. Precocious, gifted and magically adept, but arrogant, ignorant and given to fits of spoiled temperament. Both of Draco’s parents had spoiled him outrageously, eventually turning what could have been a truly exceptional young man into a tempestuous and insipid, overly pampered adolescent with no self-discipline of any kind.

Snape winced inwardly, his face remaining an impassive mask, when Draco mentioned the Death Eaters he’d fallen in with. LeStrange was far more wicked than most, and MacNair had been a savage and brutal thug. Hyde-Pratt was merely a fawning toady with a penchant for dispensing pain upon the helpless, but the three of them together was a troublesome thought. Severus needed no imagination to conjure up images of what Draco might have endured…because he’d witnessed a thousand such acts of bestial vulgarity at Dark revels. He’d survived because he could show no emotion save for what he wished to be shown, and he had often watched with a look of sick glee while Muggles were tormented, violated, and eventually slaughtered like sheep. His proclaimed pleasure had been watching, and others had looked upon his countenance and believed him, but they had been wrong.

Every horror visited upon the victims of Voldemort’s followers was indelibly burned into Severus’ brain, and had it not been for his adept use of a Pensieve, he’d likely have gone mad.

The sight of Draco was irritating, even after considerable time, but he couldn’t ignore the boy entirely. Draco showed a sincerity and a courage that was utterly unfamiliar to Severus, and if his words were true, then few deserved aid as he did. It was tempting…to vent his bitterness upon the wretch that had brought complete ruin to him, altering so many lives for the worse with a single stroke of pride and cowardice, but Severus settled for a simple test of resolve. If Draco could take his licks, so to speak, and endure an unflinching view of what he had wrought, and still have the courage to ask a boon…well…then perhaps he deserved that for which he was asking.

“I see.”

Severus let the words hang in the air between them, gazing directly into Draco’s eyes and carefully measuring what he saw in them.

“Draco…tell me, without embellishment or unnecessary explanation, what you think I am.”

“You’re…you’re a potions master, sir.”

“Very good. Now…can you tell me, succinctly, the degree to which a true potions master is valued?”

“There are very few who truly master the art of potion-making. So few that, when someone does accomplish it, their name is known around the world. Magical schools and wealthy patrons practically throw themselves at the feet of potions masters, in hopes of acquiring a contract with one.”

“Again you answer correctly. You were never stupid. Unwise, but never stupid. Let me offer to you a possible scenario…one which makes little sense…and we shall see if you can make sense of it for us.”

Silky sarcasm and faint menace oozed from Snape’s every word. Draco nodded meekly, suspecting that Snape’s rejection was going to involve monumental humiliation.

“What, if anything, would cause a potions master, a man respected around the world for his expertise in one of the most demanding crafts in the magical field, to abandon his homeland, dwell in a Stuttgart ghetto, and labor for a pathetic apothecary, instead of taking a position at a school or a court, when his skills are ostensibly so valued that they command awe and esteem? What, in your opinion, would bring such a strange, and highly unlikely, situation to pass?”

Draco looked down to the floor, dejected and clearly uncomfortable in the extreme.

“Look me in the eyes…and say it! What do you think would bring this to pass? Now!”

Draco looked up, and held Severus’ gaze the best he could, obviously near to tears. If the appalling wretch couldn’t handle this, there was little that could be done for him in any case. Draco’s voice was strained and uncertain.

“I did. You tried to help me. You took a vow, and I pushed you away, and I…your reputation was destroyed. That’s…that’s why you’re here. I’m sorry, and…I shouldn’t have wasted your time.”

“Correct again. Now that we have established these things as clear, let us examine the rest of the matter. Am I to understand that, impoverished, defamed, and burdened by the knowledge that my friend and mentor is dead by my hand, that I should, at your request, render up aid and succor to you, the very person who brought this state of affairs to pass?”

Draco was already turning for the Floo when Severus spoke calmly.

“Sit.”

The boy turned back, looking like he hadn’t heard properly.

“What?”

“I said…sit. Come to the table, take the seat that remains, and sit. I cannot assess what will be required without preliminary examination. If you do not sit, you will likely fall when I am finished. You may leave if you wish, or you may stay and permit me to get on with this. It is of no moment to me which you choose.”

Draco hurried into the chair, words stumbling out.

“Thank you. I don’t know how to…”

“Be silent. I haven’t any need to hear your fatuous praise. Sit still, hold your tongue, and I will see what can or cannot be done.”

Snape’s eyes bored into Draco’s, and a second later Draco could feel the push of a consciousness entering his own. It was like fingertips brushing through the fabric of his mind. Here prodding gently, there moving something aside. The tension was unbearable, and there was worse. Key memories were pulled to the forefront of his mind’s eye, and examined ruthlessly for details. Things he’d striven to forget were dragged back into the light, forced to play out in his imagination with a clarity that was far greater than any nightmare haze.

‘The feel of cobblestones crashing into his back, hurled by angry street merchants. The mix of elation and disgust, shame and relief, that filled him when he found discarded food that hadn’t completely spoiled in the trash bins of Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade. Hyde-Pratt’s eyes holding a faint gleam of pleasure when Draco consented to join him for a meal. His uncle’s sickening calm while carving open Draco’s belly, calmly discussing the matter while toying with Draco’s exposed viscera. MacNair’s wild laughter and crude insults during endless acts of violation. Hyde-Pratt’s leers and giggles when he pressed red hot irons into the sensitive skin of the inner thigh. The memory of the stench of his own charred and smoking flesh. Tears, screams, vomit, madness, drug-induced solace and withdrawals that brought Draco to his knees.

Muggles. Draco numb and automaton-like in a world of Muggles, trading his flesh for sustenance. Endless automobiles and passers-by, each looking for quick gratification, feverishly provided by a skinny, starveling youth with a vacant expression. The bitter taste of seed spat from his mouth onto sidewalk stone. The aching slow withdrawal from drugs, made possible by a dozen substitutes that kept the worst symptoms at bay. A final violation, this one not on terms set by the traditional agreements of whore and trick, but taken by force. Screams muted by a blow to the head that left stars traipsing across Draco’s already hazy vision. Pain. Helpless tears. Rude thrusts that tore and burned. Relief when he was left alone, shuddering, in a dank basement flat, wrapped in cheap blankets that were now soiled with blood and come.

A seemingly endless walk to reach Diagon Alley’s snubs and insults once again. The Knight Bus. Harry. Molly. Arthur. Dula. Ron. Harry. Molly. Dula. Albus. Harry. Fenton. Ron. Tonks. Harry. Albus.’

The past few weeks flew through his mind, spilling their secrets to the man that whisked through them with ease. Every fear, every desire, and every notion or mood was weighed and judged, nothing left unread or deemed unworthy of interest. Draco had been right…he couldn’t have let Harry see these things. When Snape’s mind drew back, pulling away from Draco, a mountainous headache followed in Snape’s wake. Combined with the freshly relived horrors of the past year, it brought Draco slumping to the table top, gasping, trickling tears, and barely conscious through the pain.

Severus Snape flicked his wand. A cupboard opened and a series of potions, each carefully sealed and stoppered, floated to the table between them.

“The human mind was never intended for psychic invasion. The headache is the price to pay for any major intrusion caused by Legilimency. Drink these one at a time. They will greatly diminish your discomfort. I can only warn you that the headache you feel now will be a mere shadow compared to the one that lingers after any form of psychic surgery. It cannot be entirely mitigated. It must be endured. I expect you will be strong enough to survive it.”

Draco choked a moment, biting back a sob, and reached for the first bottle. Three potions later, the headache was merely annoying, and his mind had been sufficiently dulled to tolerate the lingering visions of the past year that still flickered across his mind’s eye, inducing moments of panic, disgust, self-loathing and terror. Severus Snape stood up and paced the room while Draco held his face in his hands, struggling to pull himself together and speak again. Snape’s monologue was hard to concentrate on, but the words were too important to miss.

“It can be done...the thing you ask for…but it won’t be without sacrifice…or without pain. It will take hours, Draco. To ward so many memories will be time consuming and difficult, but it can be done. I will do this. You are fortunate indeed that Potter did not attempt this procedure. He did not tell you of the risks. He blunders through life using his power with all the subtlety of a club to the head, and yet he imagines that he could manage this with precision? Utter arrogance! His own mind could be lost in yours, and failure was almost certain. This use of Legilimency requires a certain distance from the subject, lest the sight of a suffering loved one steal away reason and caution. I have no doubt that Potter would have tried, and I have no doubt that he would have failed. You were right to come here, and when the letter arrives, I will come to you.”

Snape paused his pacing and stood across from Draco, waiting silently for acknowledgement. Draco finally lifted his head and blearily looked his former professor in the eyes. Snape spoke in even, measured tones, none of his usual sarcasm remained, and Draco was dumbstruck by what he heard.

“Draco. My bitterness over things of the past aside, I regret that you have endured so much. I would not have wished those things upon you, but sentiment counts for naught. You erred, as people often do, and no one should pay such a price for an error, no matter how serious their lapse of judgment. Albus would have wanted this, and I feel as though I have little choice but to give you some semblance of normalcy, that you might have some hope of success, and a life beyond that.

What you have entered into is a dangerous game, and Potter is to blame for ignoring Albus’ every attempt to educate him. He did not listen when he was told that love would conquer the Dark Lord, and he did not believe when evidence was placed before his very eyes. None of this would be necessary but for the ignorance and arrogance of a reckless and powerful boy. I will help however I can, but I offer this counsel. Your ‘involvement’ with Harry Potter places you in direct conflict with the spirit that resides in him, and places you at the forefront of a battle of wills that has been brewing for almost two years. Whatever your persuasion, whatever your preferences, you are taking grave risks with your sanity and health by choosing this course. For your own sake, take your leave of that boy and get as far away as possible. It would be all the safer for you. That said…are you certain that you wish to do this?”

Draco nodded soberly, his chin set at a defiant angle. His choice had already been made before he came here, and even Severus Snape’s direst warnings could not have dissuaded him at this point. Whatever it took, he would help Harry, even if it meant following him to his grave. His life had a single purpose…a final destination. As if viewed through a looking glass, shrouded by distance and the haze of possibility, Draco could see a future, however far-off. Someday, somehow, he would have a lover, and a life with that lover, and that lover would be Harry. He was resolute. He had been debased, abused and made sport of, and had endured complete and total degradation. Nothing could deter him now, because he had already been through every ugliness that fate or chance could dish out. Come what may, he would either see Harry well and free of Voldemort’s influence, or he would die trying. He gave his answer without hesitation or even a trace of uncertainty.

“Yes.”

Severus Snape sighed softly.

“Very well. When this letter comes, I will respond, and we will do what must be done.”


TBC!!!