In The Arms of an Angel

Chapter 6 Draco, Severus, and Harry


The next morning Harry and Ron woke up late to find Hermione and Draco sitting at the table, eating breakfast, and discussing what potions they may want to brew to have around. As he went over to grab himself a plate, Harry covertly watched the two and tried to see if their body language would give anything away about their relationship. Ron was oblivious to anything that wasn't the food he was piling on his plate in heaps.

Hermione and Draco continued their conversation after their 'good mornings' to Ron and Harry. At one point Harry had asked if they would like any help in their brewing. Both Ron and Hermione looked at him as if he had suddenly grown another head and Draco's lips started to quirk upward.

"Harry, are you alright?" Hermione asked, putting her hand to his forehead. "You know that neither you nor Ron can brew most of the potions needed, as they're complicated, and I don't want my house to blow up."

"Just thought I'd ask," Harry said indignantly. By this time, Draco was having an extremely hard time controlling his laughter.

"Well, then, thank you, Harry, but between Draco, Severus and myself, I think we have the potion making well in hand."

"Besides, mate, why would you want to anyway? You hate potions as much as I do. We could play a game of wizard's chess or something instead, it would be much more relaxing," Ron said with his mouth full of food.

~~*~~*~~

As Hermione and Draco were brewing their potions that morning, neither spoke much, as each were lost in their own thoughts. Hermione's thoughts were scrambled between horcruxes, Harry, Draco, the state of the war and the potion in front of her.
Draco, on the other hand, had a more focused mind. The previous night when he had left the three friends alone he had gone to his room and read some. After sleeping on the streets for so long, he had become a light sleeper. The first couple of nights here he had slept deeply, being so tired. Now, though, he seemed to be back in the light sleeping habit, as he was woken in the very early morning by the sound of a door shutting and shuffling in the hallway.

He had cracked open his door to see Potter slip into Hermione's room and was encompassed by a feeling that he disgustedly recognized as jealousy. While he was conscious that he was attracted to Hermione, he still didn't want to feel jealous of anyone. He was particularly miffed that it was Saint Potter who evoked the feeling. He had known that it was perverted and voyeuristic of him but at the moment he hadn't cared. He had wanted verification of his suspicions that Hermione and Potter were sleeping together. So, he had disallusioned himself and sat outside the door that Potter had left open by just a sliver in his haste to reach the lady of the house.

Draco sat there and listened to the conversation, feeling happier and happier with every word Hermione spoke. Obviously she hadn't been dating Potter, or everyone would know about it, including Weasley. This meant that while she wouldn't technically be on the rebound, she still may need a caring person around. Particularly, a caring person who knew what was going on, and if the day's spectacle had done anything, it made him sure that she knew he had guessed the true nature of her relationship with Harry.

Having gotten to know her through the stories of her parents and hanging out with her the past few days, he was aware that if he schemed to be the object of her affections and she found out it would all end badly for him. So instead, he would just make himself available to her. It was a good thing that he had the ability to be patient -- at least when it came to the important things.

Draco was also wondering if Harry had yet to realize that he was a rival. He had a feeling that the answer to that question was a resounding 'yes' based on the glares he received throughout breakfast, as well as the offer to help with potions. Now that had been laughable. But really, what could he say? Potter never had been one for subtlety.

He was torn away from his musings as the door to the room opened up and Severus came in just as he was finishing up the blood replenishing potion he was working on. Seeing his Godfather made him realize that while he had given away his life story, he had heard nothing of Severus being anything less than a perfect Death Eater.

"Hey, Severus," Draco started.

"Yes, Draco?" he answered.

"You were going to tell me all about you not being a Death Eater."

"Was I?" Severus responded, glancing momentarily in Hermione's direction.

"Severus, if you don't want me to hear whatever it is, you can just say so," the woman in question huffed.

"In that case, Hermione, what I have to tell Draco is for his ears only. Is there anywhere that we can go for privacy since I noticed Potter and Weasley have returned?" While his voice was the picture of decorum the sneer on his face belied his feelings about Harry and Ron's presence. While Snape had come to less glacial terms with the former a long time ago, the two were still on less than friendly terms. Most of the time Snape and Harry were cordial to each other, neither looking to bait the other into a fight, but most of the time, tolerating was the best they got.

"Ummmm, your best bet would probably be either Draco's or my room, or the infirmary. Unless you want to wait until I'm done with this potion and talk in here. It will only take another ten minutes or so."

"In that case, we will wait." And so they did, talking about current events and which pureblood married which pureblood and who gave birth and whatnot. When Hermione had learned that Severus was something of a gossip whore she was beyond shocked, but now it was just an endearing quirk about him that made him more human in her eyes.

Hermione stopped up the last bottle she had filled with her calming draught. When she had placed them onto the proper spot on the shelf she moved over to the only painting in the room; a simmering cauldron filled with a silvery pink substance. After asking Draco and Severus to move to the other side of the room so they couldn't see what she was doing, she whispered the password to open the painting from the wall before she opened the muggle safe that had been expanded with magic. It was top of the line; it only opened up by Hermione's handprint, a six-digit code, and voice recognition of her singing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow."

"What the fuck is that, Granger?" Draco asked, slipping into his former habit of calling her by her last name.

"This, Draco, is my safe." She then proceeded to pull out ten small vials, placing them into her pockets, each held safe with an unbreakable charm. The charm wouldn't stop leaks, but the vials were all corked off properly.

"That is a complicated safe you've got there."

"I have extremely important items kept in this safe that would be a disaster in the wrong hands."

"And what are you taking out of it now?"

"Memories, when did you get so inquisitive, Draco?" she responded as she closed the safe and turned to face the two men on the opposite side of the room.

"I don't know. That's just a really weird safe."

"It's muggle precautions. All of which are keyed to only me."

"Wouldn't that be easy to get around if someone were trying to open it without permission?"

"Only if they were smart enough to use other muggle devices to obtain what is needed from me. And quite frankly, while I would never want to underestimate the enemy, most Death Eaters wouldn't even think of muggle technology, never mind know how to get around it since I have also placed very strong wards on it so as to not be able to be opened with magic."

"You?"

"Well, with help from Severus, Harry, and Minerva."

"Ah," he said in understanding, a small smirk gracing his features.

"Shut up," she told him, playfully smacking the back of his head as she left the room, Draco's eyes firmly glued to her backside. He snapped back to reality when Severus cleared his throat after Hermione had closed the door. He turned his head and looked sheepishly at the older man, who was shaking his head and repressing his laughter.

"What?" Draco asked.

"I just never thought I would live to see the day when Draco Malfoy lusted after Hermione Granger."

"So, Severus, when did you turn on the Great Bastard?"

Severus decided to allow his sidestep and chose to answer the question rather than press upon his previous observation. He motioned for them to sit on the stools that were situated against the wall in a little nook that was created by the separation of bookcase to make room for a magical window. Draco had never considered the presence of windows in this room before, forgetting that the wall was shared with the next townhouse over.

And so Severus started to tell a story for the very first time to another person. "When I attended Hogwarts, I was something of an outcast, but the main group who went out of their way to make my life hell was James Potter, Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew, and Remus Lupin. But there were two people who went out of their way to befriend me – one was your father, the other, Lily Evans.

"She was a very good friend to me, despite the fact that I wasn't willing to openly acknowledge our friendship. She was, after all, a Gryffindor and a muggle-born. But, she was excellent at potions. She could feel the reasons behind the ingredients, and understand the difference between something being ground or finely ground ..." Severus' voice trailed away slightly as he remembered the skills of his friend before he came out of his reverie, his voice now hardening slightly.

"One would have hoped that she would pass her skills on, but that insufferable child of hers has absolutely no skills whatsoever. We had to ban him from this lab so he wouldn't blow up the place." By the time he was finished, his face had formed the normal sneer that arose whenever he so much as thought about Harry Potter.

"One day in fifth year, Potter decided he was bored and therefore the only thing to possible amuse him would be to humiliate me, and Lily tried to help me. I wouldn't let her, and in the process, called her a Mudblood. After that, she refused to speak to me. Eventually she wore down just enough to have cordial conversations about the task at hand during class if we were partnered together, but that was it.

"When she started dating him I saw it as the ultimate betrayal of the friendship we had once shared despite that fact that as far as she was concerned, that friendship had ended long before she was with Potter. Apparently your father had known of our friendship, because although he was no longer in school by then, he had made sure to keep abreast of all the news at Hogwarts. By this time, he was already a Death Eater and was able to convince me that Lily was no more than a mudblood and what could one expect from someone like that? Eventually, with the guidance and friendship of Lucius, I joined the ranks of the Death Eaters in earnest after I graduated.

"Not too soon after I was walking by the Hog's Head when the door opened and I heard the beginning of a prophecy that said someone would be born with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord. I was kicked out before I could hear the end of it and I went directly to him to tell him what I had overheard. Since the person the prophecy had been made to was Albus, I was to secure a post as a professor at Hogwart's. I applied for the Defense job, but was turned down and given Potions since Slughorn had decided to retire."

"Albus had known that I was a Death Eater and had hired me in hopes that I would change my loyalties and I suspected such, but I had no intention of turning from the Dark Lord. But then the first provisions of the prophecy had been fulfilled, with two toddlers to choose from as the threat. I did not know why then and I do not know why now, but the Dark Lord saw Potter as more of a threat than Longbottom."

When Draco couldn't hold in a stifled laugh at the thought of Neville being any type of threat, his godfather gave him an icy glare. "Draco, do not presume to know anything about Longbottom. From what I understand he was a formidable opponent while still in Hogwarts, and is more than such today. He has been an asset to the Order and to the war against the Dark Lord."

Before Draco could say anything in response, Severus continued. "When I learned of the Dark Lord's plans for the Potter's, something in me snapped. All of the feelings I had had for Lily resurfaced, no, none of them were romantic, so wipe that smirk off you face, Draco, and I knew that as much as Harry was James' son, he was also Lily's and I didn't want the child to die. Technically, I didn't really want Longbottom to die either. Harming and killing children has never sat quite right with me, but it's one of those things that you get over if you want to stay alive as a Death Eater."

"So, I went to Albus and laid out the situation. I wanted to defect from the Dark Lord despite the fact that I knew that it would be akin to signing my own death warrant. Albus would not let me and instead convinced me to turn spy for him. I was already well accomplished at occlumency as there were some things that I had been hiding from the Dark Lord that would have at least gotten me a few rounds of crucio so I knew that if necessary I could fool him and worked to fortify my barriers and school my emotions even more than most Slytherins are taught."

"With my information, the Potters' went into hiding under the Fidelius charm." At this point, Draco's face lit up with recognition, thinking back to Hermione saying that Harry's parents died because of the betrayal of their secret-keeper. "Everyone assumed that their secret-keeper was Black, as he was Potter's best friend. Apparently, though, Black had considered that everyone would assume it was him and so convinced them to have Pettigrew as the secret-keeper. Pettigrew had been a mole for the Dark Lord for quite some time and told him their whereabouts right away."

"After a few months, when the Potters would have been feeling secure in their hiding, the Dark Lord decided to strike, and since I was the one who gave him the information that led to it in the first place, I was invited to go along with him. As you well know, it is not something that you can just say no to, and I was given less than two minutes notice, so I couldn't warn anyone."

"Pettigrew told me the address and the Dark Lord, Lucius, and I went to Godric's Hollow. Pettigrew was too much of a coward to come with us and face his friend. When we got there, James threw up a big fight, but was no match for the Dark Lord. Lucius and I were not to help in any way. We were there to be witnesses that the only threat to the Dark Lord's impending reign was gone. As much as I had hated Potter, and I was not upset at his death, nor did I feel any happiness over it. Then he moved on to the nursery where Lily was standing in front of the crib. After the Dark Lord told her that she did not have to die, which was a gift to me that he intended on making me pay for long after from what I have gathered, I pleaded with her to just step aside, but like any other good mother, she would not. And so he killed her."

"Once she had fallen, the Dark Lord gave Lucius a sword to hold and drank down a potion that looked like it had caused him pain before performing a complicated spell that I had never heard before. Once he was finished, he pointed his wand and cast the killing curse on Harry. It rebounded off of his forehead and hit the Dark Lord. Instead of just slumping to the ground as normal, his body exploded, taking a large portion of the house with it."

"Lucius and I had quickly put shielding charms around ourselves, but before Harry had been able to instinctively get his own up, a ball of white light that had appeared from the Dark Lord's body as he imploded crossed the room and seemed to fly into where Harry's head was bleeding from the rebound of the Avada Kedavra."

From this information, Draco was feeling a myriad of things, ranging from shock and curiosity to disgust at the pieces of Voldemort that would have been hanging around, attached to the debris of the house. "Have you ever told anyone about this?"

"Only Dumbledore, and now, you."

Draco nodded his head with a thoughtful look on his face before he posed his next question. "Do you know why he had a sword with him or why he did the weird spell?"

"No, but your father seemed to. But as I was saying, so, Lucius dropped the sword in the explosion and he and I apparated out just as Harry's shield surrounded him. Apparently the next day, Albus had Hagrid bring him to his muggle relatives who raised him.

"Most of us thought that the Dark Lord was dead. Especially myself, as I had seen the whole thing with my own eyes, so, I stayed at Hogwarts having nothing else to go to. I never understood why, but your father was less than convinced of the Dark Lord's death. When you were in your fourth year and the Dark Lord came back with the help of Wormtail, I went back to being a spy for the Order."

"As you know, when you were given your mission, I made an Unbreakable Vow to your mother to help you and finish your job if you couldn't. At the first opportunity I told Albus everything, so he had known throughout the entire school year what you were up to. He was already dying a slow death due to the poisons that killed his arm, and so he made me promise that if I could, I would kill him and save you from that fate. And so that's what happened that night. I didn't want to do it, but I had promised and that way you wouldn't have been forced to do it yourself."

"After you had been put in the dungeons I stayed at Spinner's End where I received a most unusual owl. It was from Potter. It seemed that he had inherited Albus' pensieve as well as the memories he had stored. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if the memories Hermione took out of her safe were his. One of the memories showed the meeting where he and I spoke of your situation and he asked me to kill him. Because of that, the Order realized that I was following orders and accepted me back. At which point, I had to tell the Dark Lord about it all. He then went on and on about how stupid and trusting Dumbledore and the Order are, accepting his spy right back into the fold after killing their leader. And that about leads us to where we are now."

"So, for my entire life, you've always acted as though you agree with almost everything that Father ever said, but in reality, you didn't agree with him?"

"There are many things that I agreed with you father about, Draco, but there more things that I didn't. The key to being a good spy is to let everyone see in you what they want to see and not give them reason to doubt that image. That is what I did with your father."

"I think I understand, though it would have helped me so much if I knew all of this before."

"Yes, but I wasn't sure that I could trust you with it then. For all I knew, you would go straight to Lucius and I would be as good as dead."

"I know why you couldn't tell me, Severus; it just sucks."

~~*~~*~~

A week had passed since Draco and Severus' talk. After reviewing the pensieve memories again, they decided on a few more locations to look for the horcrux and the time had come for Ron and Harry to be on their way and resume the search. Hermione had started to try and figure out how to get a rogue Dementor to help them, but so far to no avail.

Hermione continued to turn down the few moves Harry made in hopes that she had changed her mind. Instead, he watched as Hermione and Draco slowly got closer and closer to one another. Truth be told, on one hand he wanted nothing more than to leave and get them out of his sight while on the other he wanted to stay and to continue and try to thwart any time that the two would be left alone. While Draco had picked up right away what he was doing, Hermione was still oblivious.

The girl was a genius, but she just wasn't self-confident enough to believe that men would be interested in her. She had originally whole-heartedly believed that the only reason anything had happened between the two of them was the alcohol. Of course, it had played a part, but Harry had wanted her for some time beforehand and just hadn't acted upon it. This was a fact which took quite some time to drill into her head.

Over the previous day, Hermione had become slightly melancholy, the way she always did when they were about to leave. Another part of her ritual of them going on their searches was that in order to have a focus with her mood, she would cast a spell at almost everything. It was always the same spell, a complicated diagnostic spell, and it made everything she hit with it becomes surrounded with a light blue light to show a negative result. This time, though, she started to cast the spell upon people as well.

After she had hugged both Ron and Harry good-bye, Harry's hug slightly more possessive, and pulled away, she decided to cast the spell on the group of people as the two each shook Draco's hand as well as Snape's and hugged Remus. Draco and Ron each glowed in the light blue, rolling their eyes to each other as they saw their auras. The spell hit Harry just as he apparated out of the room, surrounded by a distinctly while light.


* As always, many thanks go out to Heather and her mad skillz with the beta. for those who reviewed, thanks as well...skydancer, kittycat30, sheedy, linmo (no need to worry on giving it up; the entire story is already written), and paigeey07 (pottercast is a harry potter podcast put out by the leaky cauldron. mugglenet has mugglecast. theres a plethora of other as well [honorable mention to snapecast] but those are the two biggest.)