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Sunshine and Shadows	By : gotsnape Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 3105 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 7
- 8
Sunshine and Shadows- Chapter 8
Tall Mountains and Deep Valleys
The title should tell you everything. And no, I do not own the
PotterVerse. Anything you recognize is the property of the lovely
JKR. This story is not HBP compliant. No spoilers are contained
within its lines.
Ignoring the outstretched hand, Draco managed to get to
his feet though his knees refused to fully extend. Bracing his hands
upon his slanted thighs the blond struggled to breathe.
"Mr. Mal..." Severus hesitated before continuing softly.
"Draco -"
Cold, burning eyes glared at the Potions Master through
a veil of tangled silver, while one hand sliced the air to point an accusing
finger.
"You knew!" The words rolled from his tight throat
in a growl and Draco's face twisted as he wrestled with the anger and agony
the knowledge brought.
Professor Snape slowly withdrew the proffered hand, his
own features drawn and tired with more than the weight of his years.
"A bit." he admitted with a leaden shrug of his broad shoulders, his voice
low and rough as gravel. "Not all and even then it was some many
months after the event in the Chamber."
"Event?" Draco wanted to scream and laugh and run
until his heart exploded.
"Dammit, Draco! What word would you have me use?"
Severus hissed in frustration.
"It was rape, you...cold-hearted...bastard!"
Draco panted, his body swaying drunkenly as he rose to his full height.
He swiped the hair from his face and glanced over his shoulder to the bed
where Ginny continued to toss restlessly.
"She never admitted as much, but we all had our suspicions."
Severus' voice brought Draco's attention to his long time friend and teacher.
The wizard's fathom less black eyes were fixed upon the young witch,
compassion laying oddly on his face, like tinsel on a tombstone.
"She refused to speak of her abduction once Potter freed her from the chamber
but her wounds screamed aloud the truth for her."
Ginny whimpered in her troubled sleep and Snape flowed
to her bedside to lay a comforting hand to her cheek. Without lifting
his eyes from her strained countenance he addressed his young friend.
"I was able to identify the individual components of the potion Miss Weasley
received so I am at a loss as to why she is reacting in this manner."
"How?" Draco inquired, his voice still numb with
shock.
Severus glanced up, his thin lips curling at the corners
in the barest of smiles. "When I tasted her, Draco. Surely,
you do not think me the type to engage in that sort of display merely for
the benefit of the maddened crowd, nor have I long harbored a secret lusting
for this young woman."
The blond nodded, scraping his forearm across his running
nose.
Severus grimaced and pointed to the bathroom. "Clean
your self up, Mr. Malfoy. When you return, remember to bring your
manners into my presence with you." This said, the wizard continued
his study of Ginny, a frown of puzzlement on his thin features.
Draco scowled but removed him self from the chamber to
splash water over his fevered face and blow his nose. When he returned
to Ginny's bedside he found the Potions Master perched upon the mattress
edge holding the witch's wrist lightly in his fingers. "Her pulse
is slightly accelerated, but that is not as expected. The potion
she swallowed was perfectly brewed and should have left her calm and alert."
With a frown the older wizard continued. "With that draft, Miss Weasley
should have been able to isolate and lock away her greatest fears and horrifying
experiences. However, while it would seem the isolation has taken
place, the events and their associated emotions have been brought to the
forefront of her mind, increasing her anxiety this evening and bringing
on a form of panic induced shock."
Draco nodded in agreement while privately bristling at
Snape's cold and clinical assessment of Ginny's situation. "Perhaps
an additional spell has been laid over the potion?" He inquired in
a mockingly detached tone.
"Do not attempt a feign indifference with me, Draco."
Snape said drily, dropping a slender, black brow in quiet reprimand.
"I know you too well. Either choose your stance and speak boldly
or remain neutral and silent, as is usually been your wont.
As to a spell, I could detect none upon her."
Malfoy had the grace to color under his mentor's chiding
and clearing his throat, looked to the pale, sleeping occupant of the large
bed.
"Should we wake her?" Draco probed. "Her dreams
are less than pleasant." He held him self rigid against the shudder
that threatened, memories of Ginny's nightmare clotting the blood around
his heart.
Shaking his black head, Severus rose. "I have placed
an Orpheus Rosa charm on her. She will experience no more
dreams and will wake soon." He crossed the chamber to the wide French
doors which opened soundlessly at his approach. Severus stepped out
onto the balcony gesturing for Draco to follow.
The Autumn sun was rising above the treetops, its glow
suffusing the grounds with a sleep roused blush. Birds were beginning
to call one to another from the trees and shrubs, their song floating to
the wizards on the freshening breeze. Draco felt the naked skin of
his torso pebble with chill and summoned the discarded robe from his make-do
bed. Shrugging into its warmth the young wizard muttered, "This has
been a very long night."
Professor Snape regarded his guest sourly. "If you
had but released Miss Weasley into my care, your evening would have been
greatly shortened." Turning to stare once more at the arriving daylight
the Potions Master snarled, "What WERE you thinking, Draco?"
"There in lies the rub, Severus." Draco responded
bitterly, tucking his chilled hands into the deep pockets of his dressing
gown. "I was not thinking." Casting a glance to where Ginny now rested
peacefully, he continued. "Or, at least, not thinking clearly.
From the second I saw her lying there on that damned tray I ..."
He stopped, lowering his head with remorse.
"Wanted her." Snape closed Draco's dangling sentence.
"Yes," the blond whispered, then louder, "No!" He
spun on his friend, gray eyes storming. "Not like that. As you, who claim
to know me so well, should realize."
"What I realize," the older wizard hissed, "is
that your risked the safety, if not the life, of an innocent woman for
your own ego!" He did not pause with Draco's affronted gasp, but
advanced onward. "Is it not enough that you have that twit, Parkinson,
in your web, but you must entangle Miss Weasley, a known enemy
of
your family, as well?" Pinching the bridge of his prominent nose,
Severus screwed his eyes tightly shut. "The moment you displayed
the slightest interest in Miss Weasley, you marked her as a target."
"I know."
Snape's eyes cracked slightly. He looked to his
young friend but said nothing.
Draco stood, unflinching, before his former Head of House,
his expression not one of shame, but of accountability, remorse and acceptance
of his culpability showing clearly in the soft shale of his eyes. "All
I have now is Pansy." He snorted and gestured back to the
open door and the bed that lay within. "Do you blame me for wanting
something sweet, for grasping this one pure moment to sustain me for the
rest of my life?" Draco turned his face to the sunrise. "If I could
just have had her good will, have had her think of me with some degree
of kindness, it would have fed my heart for a long, long time." The
blond wizard brooded for a short time. "I have ruined that now, I
suppose."
"If you wish to raise yourself in Miss Weasley's eye what better course than to rid your self of Parkinson, declare your self a supporter of Dumbledore and tell your bastard father to go to hell dragging his monster lord with him!"

"I cannot do that, Severus!" Draco responded hotly. "I fully intend to survive this war and I cannot do that by declaring sides." He ignored the Potions Masters sniff of distain. "I will bring the House of Malfoy back from ruin and I need Pansy's fortune to succeed. If Father had only excerised some caution when flinging his gold at Voldie's feet I might not need to bed the bitch to gain the galleons."

The dark master snorted bitterly, casting his companion
a stinging glance. The loud snap of his finger and thumb was immediately
echoed by the crisp pop of Leo's appearing.
The elf bowed low. "You'se usual breakfast, Master
Snape, sir?"
"For two." The Master replied in his familiar, clipped
tones. He looked at Draco. "Though why I feel moved to nourish your sorry
ass is, at the moment, a mystery." Professor Snape folded his lanky
frame easily into one of the four wrought iron chairs that were placed
around a timeless metal table. He arranged the many folds of his
elegant black robes with a casual efficiency that belied his humble beginnings,
and gestured that Draco join him.
Leo returned, served the pair with seasoned skill and
left them to their repast. A thought filled silence joined the wizards
for their meal, the empty space it occupied absorbing the songs of the
birds and their handmade counterparts of cutlery upon fine bone china.
It fed, not upon the rashers and eggs, but upon the unvoiced apprehension
and disquiet of the two men, until finally, picking its teeth with a bone
sliver of pain and refusing to be ignored any longer, belched aloud.
"He truly raped her?" Professor Snape inquired in
a low voice, his eyes fixed firmly upon his knife's business of reducing
his meal to its most basic molecular structure.
Draco swallowed a mouthful of scalding Black Rino.
Setting the delicate cup aside he dabbed his lips with a linen napkin,
but instead of folding the cloth as he had been trained to do since leaving
the nursery, he fisted the piece within his fingers until the skin along
his palm burned from the pressure. "Yes." He admitted in a firm whisper.
Severus' brow furrowed. He lay his silverware neatly
across his plate, the knife and fork, precisely parallel with each other.
"The entity Miss Weasley encountered in the Chamber of Secrets was the
memory of Tom Riddle's sixteen year old self, not the actual, physical
person. He could have not truly been there in solid, physical form."
Snape argued quietly, as if attempting to convince him self. "I,
or Albus, would have sensed him."
"He was solid enough to take Potter's wand, Severus."
Draco pointed out and watched as his friend's eyebrow slanted in a shocked
and silent, "Eh?"
"Like you, I had my sources. I gained more information
walking the corridors of Hogwart's than I ever learned in any class room.
Yours being the exception, of course." Pushing his chair from the
table, Draco stretched his legs out in front of him and crossed them at
the ankles, his features tired and sad. "He was real enough to... do her
damage. I could feel him on her and," Draco felt the bile rising
to his mouth but forced him self to continue. "in her. She fought!
Oh gods, she fought. But she was too small. Damn him to dust, she
was just a kid! A baby! How could anyone..." Scrubbing
his face roughly with his fingertips, the blond wizard faded into brooding
quiet.
Severus waited throughout several heartbeats before speaking,
his voice pitched low, as if breaking a confidence. "I went to her."
Draco gaze shot up, held fast by the Potions Master's words and the haunted
memory behind the wizard's black eyes.
"After she was freed from the Chamber?"
The Potions Master nodded slowly. "While she was
yet in the Infirmary, I went to her." The elder man took a brief sip of
his coffee before continuing. "She had been placed in an isolated
section of the ward, sealed off from the others, as if she had some horrible
disease that might contaminate them. It offended me that she had
been shut away, though Poppy would insist it was for the girl's welfare,
as if shielding her from the eyes of the school would ease her suffering
or stop the rumors from flying. Bah! It only confirmed in the
child's head what she believed the other's were thinking and whispering,
that there was something to hide! She had cause to feel shame."
Severus shook his black mane at the memory and the bitter taste it still
brought to his mouth.
"I found her crying behind the curtains that had been
pulled about her cot, the sheet shoved so deeply into her mouth to stifle
the sounds that she could have easily choked herself."
Draco shifted uncomfortable in his seat, the idea of the
Child Ginny suffering so would have delighted the heart of the Child Draco
and he hated him self for the person he had been. "What did you do?"
He inquired of his companion, wanting Snape's voice to quell the squirming
in his gut.
"I told Miss Weasley the story of a young man, bitter
and twisted, who gave him self over to evil on the promise of power and
knowledge; how this person lived daily with the infection of decay gnawing
at his body, into his very soul. Even when he understood the darkness and
the terrible work that would be required of him, this foolish boy chose
to continue embracing the foul goal that had been set for him." Severus
paused. "I spoke this cautionary tale so that she could see the difference
between offering one's self up to ruin and having it visited upon you unasked."
He stopped and took a long pull at his coffee cup, grimacing at the now
tepid brew. He tossed the contents over the balcony rail and refilled
his cup, tipping the pot in Draco's direction in silent question.
The blond wizard slid his cup across the table.
"What did she have to say about your poorly veiled anti-hero?"
Severus shrugged behind his cup. "She kissed my
knuckles and said that it would be all right in the end. Then she
fell asleep holding my hand."
"You risked a great deal by sharing your story with the
Baby Weasel." Draco insisted. "Were you not concerned about
the possibility of her repeating the tale to her house mates?"
Severus rested his fathom less black gaze on his young
friend. "Who said the story was mine, Draco?"
Silence returned as the two wizards studied one another.
Finally, Draco looked away. "Well, did it work, your tale?"
"I would like to think it gave her some strength in the
years that followed." Severus answered with a sigh. "Over time,
she regained her sparkle, even if it was somewhat dimmed by the constant
erosion of gossip, knowing glances and name calling." His mouth hardened
into a thin line.
Draco swirled the murky contents of his cup, his mind
on what he had just learned. "Did you ever approach her again?"
The Professor's head reared back, the underlying menace
of the question striking him deeply. Before he could form a reply
a firm voice spoke from behind the seated wizards.
"No, he did not. But he did let me sleep in his
chambers nearly every night during my third year."
Both men rose quickly, turning to see Ginny Weasley stride
out on to the terrace, her cheeks flaming and her eyes shooting amber fire.
The fullness of her nightgown and robe concealed her intent so Draco was
unprepared when her bony knuckles flew into his nose with the force of
a wild Bludger. With a crash of china and silver he landed atop the
breakfast table, blood flying from his damaged face.
Ginny shook her throbbing hand and glared at the downed
Slytherin. "YOU," she snarled. "Are a sneaking, nosey low-life!"
As if spotting the Potions Master for the first time her face broke into
a sunny smile. "Hello, Severus! Have you more of this breakfast?
I am famished."

********************************************************************************
I had not intended on ending this chapter here but I have
had so many people emailing and demanding that I up date, I was beginning
to fear for my life. I know it is not what you have all been waiting
for after so long but I have been so busy with life and medical issues
that this tale and Dark Coil have really been taking a back seat to everything
else. I promise to do better since most of the above mentioned issues
have been settled, not to my satisfaction, but they are better. I
have had no beta on this chapter. I have gone over it time and time
again and I can only hope that I have caught all the errors.
- 7
- 8
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Sunshine and Shadows