Chapter 21 – Discussions with Draco

All the cold stone and angles of Malfoy Manor were very familiar to him, but there were differences in décor and brightness. Gone were all the banners and paraphernalia of his old world. He pushed bits of black hair behind his ears as he looked up at the staircase. For a moment, he remembered many times trying to sneak either up it or down it.

Down it to sneak outside. Up it to attempt to eavesdrop on meetings and things.

"You can stay in any room you like, but I had some things put in the room to the left of Scorpius' room," Draco informed his young guest. "I was not sure which would be your…former usual?" Draco tested out the thought with a scrunch of his brow.

Sev smiled and nearly laughed.

Draco smiled back, unafraid of the uncharted territory. The charted uncharted territory?

"You guessed very well, sir. That would be my former usual." Then with a cheeky grin, he added, "But if you assumed I'd stay in one of the rooms beside Scorpius, those are good odds."

Severus had no problem following Mr. Malfoy around, and though it was not the same Mr. Malfoy, it still felt easy enough to hold a conversation with him. He had some idea, at least in a general way, what Draco Malfoy was like in his own house.

"While Professor Slughorn and I were waiting for you to come to collect your bag," Draco paused to give him a look, "We had a series of rather interesting conversations with some of your professors."

"You did, sir?" Classes were not a struggle for him, so he was not very worried about anyone saying anything bad.

"Very enlightening. Perhaps I'll tell you some." He gave Professor Snape's son a sidelong glance. "Why don't you put your bag in your room and then join me for tea. I'm starving, and you must be too after skipping all those meals. I'll be in the parlour off the library."

When Sev brought his bag upstairs, he found out what Mr. Malfoy had meant by put a few things in there for him.

Scorpius must talk about me to his dad…and they both must really pay attention.

Mr. Malfoy was certainly well-informed of his favourite Quidditch team, because there was an assortment of Falcons branded things including a grey hat for the upcoming winter months.

There were three large stacks of books. A quick skim of the titles, so as not to be rude in case Mr. Malfoy was waiting, proved that Scorpius both scoped out the quantity that he read and the most frequent subjects. The third stack was all full of various books on time and time-travel and dimensions, and…some of them were…Muggle books?

Considering Sev had spent the last few days powering through a Muggle book on Physics, he had no issue with Muggle anything, and it actually made him feel quite rebellious against his old life. However, picturing Mr. Malfoy in a Muggle bookstore was rather amusing.

Instead of poking through what else was there, he resisted the temptation and made his way toward the parlor Mr. Malfoy had specified.

Draco was already seated by the window, giving his tea a stir. Plates of sandwiches and sweets were set out on the table in front of the cushy navy blue chairs. "Come sit," he said, when he looked up. "I'm going to be quite insulted if you don't eat after missing all those meals."

"Yes, sir. Don't worry." He was practical about things like eating. And it was rather refreshing that, though he knew this Mr. Malfoy did not know him well at all, he was not walking on eggshells around him. It was what most seemed to default into doing. Or giving him a lot of looks.

While Sev fixed his tea, Draco finished his own sandwich, then said, "So, talking to your professors, Sev, you've coaxed quite a number to your corner. Well done." He chuckled.

Two dark eyebrows went up, certainly not expecting that sentiment to be the one to pop out after the preamble of talking to professors. He smiled and with a huff of amusement and a shake of his head said, "I didn't do it on purpose, sir. You make it sound…planned."

He probably should have, in retrospect. It had not really seemed needed. And they all seemed predisposed to like him anyway. Be more concerned about him. Constantly asking him how he was. More than he really cared to endure. So anything more seemed excess energy for little return here.

"Perhaps your dad planned it so. Being polite and respectful works on adults everywhere."

There was a slight hitch of grey eyes at the mention of his dad and a moment where Sev looked at the window. Not out it. Just at it. One could tell the difference if looking for such things.

"More likely a side effect than the actual purpose, sir. I think after so many years teaching, from so young an age, he appreciated the parents who raised kids who are not total disrespectful miscreants. And he was tired enough of dealing with it than to excuse it from me." Not that he had not had his own ways of playing his dad's sympathies, or trying. Not had he never gotten into trouble either, because he had. Plenty.

"So…what sort of secret miscreant are you?" Draco asked, in a conspiratorial whisper, leaning forward. It earned laugh this time.

Sev chewed some cucumber sandwich as he thought of a reply for that question. He swallowed. Cleared his throat. "The sort that couches everything wrong in something right?"

It was Draco's turn to laugh. This budding teenager was far smarter than any of these silly Gryffindors were prepared to handle!

"The ambiguous sort of wrong, sir. That someone else decides is wrong for whatever reason. I don't just go around doing things I know are wrong like some nutter," he added, just in case that was not obvious. In this world, he had to be somewhat careful.

"That much is rather obvious to me, Sev. Don't worry. You don't need to be careful of what you say. I don't have any obligations in this other than to you. To help you."

To help me what, Sev wanted to say. Not in nasty way. It was just his natural reaction, at least mentally. He could not be zipped back to his own world – it was not there and, in some way, now, never had been? His father was gone many different ways thereby. His mother just as gone but with a shell of her here that had no clue of him at all. That was almost worse, to be the one left with memories and emotions that were not real in this world. Not to her. And thus not to him with her either.

And nor did he want to share them with some stranger who looked like his mother and was genetically (and probably magically) identical, but was not his mother.

The rather blank reaction on the boy's face prompted Draco to add, "Help is not really the right word." After all, Sev was not help-less. Nor was Draco naïve enough to think the boy needed repairing, as if he could be put back together differently and better. Or that approaching it that way would be met with anything but a stare.

That acknowledgement at least had Severus chewing his sandwich again. He was a bit tired of people insinuating he needed fixing. As in all-around fixing. For a moment, he thought Mr. Malfoy was about to add himself to that list.

To that list of people who just kept asking him if he was okay in a way that insinuated his past world was his problem. They did not fathom it was more this world that was the problem.

Apparently, Mr. Malfoy took his continued (chewing) silence and lack of much outward expression to still be either contemplative or negative and went to start again.

"I understand you, sir," Sev said, shaking his head that further explanation wasn't needed. "You want me to be me with you." As much as that was possible. Which… "I'll try, sir." He was not entirely sure, himself, who that was and certainly not for here. Somehow, he did not think it was normal for who you were to require planning. That piece of his mind was wired not to shut off.

"Good," Draco said with a nod. "And your secret miscreancy is not so very secret," he added. "Professor Slughorn told me he heard what you did with the horns and that boy who told the headmistress you attacked him…"

Up went black eyebrows. "He did, sir?" He instantly ran through likely candidates for betraying his trust, but he did not think any of them would do that and get Lily in trouble too. Teenagers had a secret code about ratting such things out to the adults. Even in this world.

"Your friends did not tell him. Scorpius even denied it to me, and he knows I can tell when he's lying." Draco knew precisely what the boy would first think: where was his weak link. "I doubt he could occlude even if someone taught him," he added with a chuckle. Scorpius was the sort who wore everything.

"Are they going to be in trouble for lying about it? Is Lily going to be in trouble for giving him horns, for me?"

"No, Professor Slughorn is a Slytherin. He was rather impressed with your ruse and proud you declined to retaliate. He would rather let you lot work it out yourselves if you're doing it well. And, secretly, I bet all the professors are rather glad she gave him horns and that you scared him with public embarrassment for bullying people, but I did not tell you that."

"Tell me what, sir?" he replied, with a grin, after finishing the second of his sandwiches.

"Speaking of professors and earlier. They are all quite impressed with you and think you have quite the gifted mind."

Sev snorted, "Really? Sir, it's not really very difficult here."

"Without everything extra going on that was in your other world?"

He shook his head, "No, sir. I don't precisely know how to say this, but…most students were considerably smarter there. I mean, don't get me wrong, I was known for having an excess of brains there too, but you lot do not take magical education nearly as seriously as there."

Mr. Malfoy blinked. Sev continued, "We'd have covered much of 4th year by 2nd year, for example."

"Well, that explains some of why your Arithmancy and Runes professors jointly think you're a genius, even in their 6th year class."

"They do?" he raised a brow. Then there was a satisfied little smirk. There were few compliments flying around his old world, even for geniuses. Or maybe it was just that being complimented by Umbridge did not seem complimentary, no matter what it was about.

"That seems to be something of the consensus. Even your Muggle Studies professor seems really impressed with your ability to understand things and concepts you've absolutely no exposure to before."

Sev's brow furrowed some before he replied, "I can read, sir. And I do. A lot. It's not like my brain just does it for me…Anyone can do it. I'm just not lazy like most of them."

Draco chuckled, "No, I know that. Even so."

"There's a lot of free time in this world. I mean, a ridiculous amount by comparison." To Sev, it was the product of the much more time to read whatever it was that he wanted to read or work on whatever he wanted to work on.

"Really, Severus, you are smart to a level different than even your mum or your dad, and they were really intelligent too. Professor Slughorn and the headmistress taught them both. They would know."

That seemed to intrigue the boy, who sat back with his tea cup thinking before he took a long sip and continued contemplating.

Draco added, "If you are bored, Sev, you can say so. Reading is not the only option if you want to learn more. I could make arrangements for you to learn whatever you wish." And if the purpose of him being at school was for him to socialize and attempt to learn to be thirteen – which Draco did not think was really going to happen in any measurable way – they needed to get his head out of books and interacting with actual people. Even if said people were not also thirteen or even seventeen. So far as Draco could tell, none of them had been able to do that.

"Anything I want to learn?" he asked.

That got his attention! "Well, it wouldn't hurt to ask if there's something you want to learn. In fact, if I were you, I know the first thing I would hit up."

That put a hard stop to whatever it was Sev was thinking about asking, because he paused with his lips parted before he diverted and said, "What is that, sir?"

"Ask the headmistress to teach you to become an Animagus, of course," Draco replied. If he had the guts and less prejudice in his youth, he would have tried it.

"I had thought of that, sir, but…"

"There's a but?!"

"Well, sir, you know what my Patronus is, right?" Sev asked.

"A dragon, sure. Don't tell me you take issue with the idea of being a dragon as an Animagus?" Draco asked, blue eyes gleaming. It sounded like just the thing a thirteen-year-old boy would go bonkers over. He wouldn't mind being a dragon himself, rather apropos and all.

Sev laughed, "Well, no. I don't particularly, sir, with the idea of it." He scratched his head, "A magical creature for a Patronus is really rare, and generally most Animagi have a matching Patronus, and that's pretty much universally non-magical." If he did not know that, he might have also thought it a grand idea, but magic was sometimes odd and breaking the order of things generally did not have good effects.

"Well, I say, how do we know that if magical Patronuses are rare and Animagi are also rare? There may simply have not been much opportunity, so statistical rarity would then seem prohibitive when it might not be."

"Touche, sir. I suppose we don't know it's not possible."

"Maybe you could be the first?"

Considering he rather liked the idea of being the first to do anything, including coming up with his own spells, the idea of being the first super-rare Animagus was rather tempting. Maybe it would tire him out enough to sleep better.

"It seems like just the thing to ask Professor McGonagall." Then Draco added, "She likes you. Professor Slughorn said he thought the moving stairs were going to crumble she went off on that boy so loudly when she found out he lied, 'it was like a thunderous army of Scots' he said." Draco snorted.

"I don't feel bad for him in the least." Sev grinned and added, "I'll ask her at one of our meetings when she seems in a good mood."

"Good, now what else do you want to know? Your Muggle Studies professor said you ask a lot of questions about their sciences and how they make things?"

There was a smirk at this before he replied in true teenaged fashion, "All of that was forbidden. I was not allowed to know anything about Muggles. It was the only taboo subject, even with my father. There was no reason to know and it was far too dangerous for even a hint of curiosity in my head." He shrugged, "I had three Muggle grandparents. It's fascinating to me now that it's no longer forbidden."

"You may have two grandparents here still, technically. And neither of you would be missing memories of the other one. If I understand right, Granger Obliviated them of her at some point after 6th year and there's been some trouble reversing it completely, so you'd all be limited with her from this world to a degree. Scorpius mentioned Rose visiting them before and finding it odd because of it."

"Hmm. I did not know anything about them in my world." He had not thought about grandparents he had never met in either place. It was surely not as odd as a doppleganger who was not his mum.

"We could go see her tomorrow, our exalted Minister, and she was raised a Muggle too. You could ask her about it or I can, if you like."

Draco had noticed just a slight change on the boy's face at the mention of Granger. Scorpius had told him that the thought of all that was really weird for Severus; there being a version of his mum here that was not his mum. Draco had a feeling it was not weird but something else altogether.

If Astoria showed up tomorrow back from the dead as a version of herself who had no memory of them or connection to them, he was absolutely certain both he and Scorpius would be utterly ruined.

And they had each other. And their world. And their friends. And their routines.

Sev had none of that, and Draco had spent a lot of time thinking about that. He was not sure that Granger had. It was about time she helped with the non-sociopolitical damage control.

"It's just that I don't know her, this her, sir…" And nor did she know him. "It would seem odd to ask her about grandparents when she is not truly even my…parent." And nor did he wish that situation to come about either. He could imagine nothing worse than ever cohabitating with all of them.

"If you're not averse to the entire thing, I'll ask her for you," Draco offered. "Or maybe you'll find it's not so hard to ask as you think."

"I'm not averse to the idea," he said. Grandparents. Muggle ones. That was enough of a curiosity for him to be interested, at least.

AN – How did Slughorn find out about the horns if none of the kids told him? How is Draco doing so far?

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