Roman Holiday

Chapter Ten

“Severus,” Lucius Malfoy said. “What a pleasure. I hope you’re well?”

“Very. Thank you.”

It felt good to be back in proper wizarding robes again, after weeks of black leather. Visiting Malfoy Manor wasn’t such an unalloyed pleasure, unfortunately. Lucius Malfoy may not have headed Snape’s list of People to Avoid At All Costs Unless Absolutely Necessary, but he was certainly in the top five.

Confrontation was out of the question. This was a situation that required a certain amount of stealth.

“What can I do for you?” Lucius asked, and Severus took another sip of tea before answering.

“Well, it’s a bit embarrassing, really,” he said. Malfoy’s eyebrows rose.

“Do tell.”

Snape let one corner of his mouth curl up self-deprecatingly. “It’s a Potions matter,” he said. “Poppy Pomfrey owled me yesterday to tell me that her medical supplies are quite low. Apparently the students were more accident-prone than usual last term.”

Malfoy smiled politely. He was starting to look impatient.

Good, Severus thought, and took another sip of tea.

“Nothing terribly dangerous to make, of course,” he said. “Though some of it’s tricky. But I’ve a rather full slate as it is. I was hoping that Draco might be interested in some extra credit. One of my most gifted students. I could use an assistant for a few weeks.”

“Decent at Potions, is he?” Lucius drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. “One of his few satisfactory marks, I’m afraid. If his Transfiguration mark doesn’t improve next year, I’ll have to consider enrolling him in that Squib correspondence course.”

“He’s quite bright,” Severus murmured. “And he shows promise as a duelist. Gave our … friend … Mr. Potter a run for his money, a few years back.” Okay, he thought. Lucius was looking suitably flattered now. He drained his tea. “I hate to impose,” he said smoothly. “But it would be a great help. Do you think it’s something he might consider?”

“I’m sure he would,” Malfoy said. “If he was here.”

“Ah.” Snape allowed his face to look mildly disappointed. “Visiting friends, then.”

“Not exactly,” Lucius said, and leaned forward as if to share a confidence. “If you must know, he’s doing a bit of research himself this summer. Came quite out of the blue. I was beginning to despair of him as a proper Death-Eater.”

Snape started to reach for his empty teacup, then stopped himself. “Research?”

“On Potter’s location,” Malfoy clarified. “He seemed to think he could get the information from a friend of hers. Bushy-haired little Muggle-born.”

“Miss Granger,” Snape said softly. “I see. Admirable.”

Well, this was unexpected. Lucius Malfoy wasn’t what one would call an open book, but Snape wasn’t a tenured professor for nothing. He’d heard every lie there was, good and bad, and this wasn’t one of them. He’d just been told everything Lucius knew.

So Draco was on his own. The question was: why?

And what was in Bangkok?

**

Snape was gone. Lucius Malfoy looked grim, his eyes travelling around the sumptuous, elegant drawing room of Malfoy Manor.

He’d long been a collector of gadgets, particularly perpetual-motion gadgets. Such a thing didn’t exist in the Muggle world, of course, but a simple charm could make the most unlikely gizmo run for years on its own power. The Malfoy collection was superb; all onyx and marble and sleek chrome steel. He had at least fifteen of his more interesting specimens artfully displayed on a side table in this very room.

He was only looking at one, though, an unprepossessing flattened oval of polished basalt dug from the ocean floor and buffed to a linoleum shine. Normally it sat motionless on the table; should anyone remark on it, he passed it off as a misplaced paperweight and threw it at the nearest house-elf.

The moment Snape had begun to speak, it had started to spin. It was just now, twenty minutes after his departure, beginning to slow.

The Silent Sneakoscope, and very cleverly disguised, too. If Lucius said so himself. He sipped his tea and continued to study the slowly revolving rock, his mouth going flatter and his eyes colder by the second.

A Potions assistant, indeed. Hanging around with that old bat Dumbledore hadn’t done much for Snape’s facility with storytelling. He’d once, as Lucius remembered, been quite good at it.

It was fairly clear that his loyalties didn’t lie with the Death-Eaters any longer, and yet he wasn’t singled out during meetings, either for questioning or for punishment. Lucius resented this on a certain level; he also understood Voldemort’s clemency perfectly.

If there was one thing that was genuine about Severus Snape, it was his hatred for the Potters - both brave, doomed, dead James and his cocky, precocious brat. If anything brought him back over to the side of Darkness, it wouldn’t be Lord Voldemort who pushed him over the edge. Not with Imperius, and not with Cruciatus.

It would be Harry Potter.

Be that as it may. It occurred to Lucius that Draco had pitched this trip to Rome not in the drawing room, but in his own bedroom. Far away from the Sneakoscope.

His mouth tightened yet again. Was his son lying to him? It had seemed so plausible, his story. Simple manipulation of a Mudblood. Information gathering with a hard edge of violence beneath it - clearly Draco had a score to settle with Hermione Granger. It was something Lucius himself, or any other intelligent, eager future Death Eater might have thought to do at Draco’s age.

And it was exactly what you wanted to hear, he thought grimly. The little bastard played you. Ten to one that Snape knows he’s in Rome already. What’s he up to with that buck-toothed little mongrel?

He hurled his teacup at the opposite wall, feeling a little better as the porcelain shattered against the damask wallpaper. “Clean that up,” he barked at the house-elf who hovered nervously in the doorway, and shoved himself up from his chair.

His son. His heir. His own image, looking back at him from the cradle on up.

Conceived in an exquisite act of violence. Raised with the heavy cold hand of money and privilege and expectation.

Destined for sacrifice. The Son of the Most Worthy, Voldemort had said, and Lucius had carried that with him like a secret badge of honor. His son would bring down the Muggle-lovers and the Mudbloods. His son would purge the world.

His. And he would be honored for it, be placed at the right hand of the Dark Lord, finally rise and be counted and be far above the idiots and incompetents who huddled in their dark circle, giggling at the thought of Muggle-baiting and whispering their dirty little stories from ear to ear.

He stalked into the front hall and slung a cloak around himself. If his son really was in Rome, he wouldn’t be there for long. As for the little whore he was cavorting with?

He could think of a couple of uses for the little Mudblood, all vastly entertaining.

And what better way to draw Potter out of hiding?

He smiled once, very coldly, and Apparated.