From Frustration to Trust

From Frustration to Trust

Severus Snape's malevolent look when he had first been assigned the task of teaching him set Draco on his guard. Slytherin house would not protect him. Cold sweat running down his spine, Draco prepared himself for what he knew the man was capable of.

His new guard might easily approach the task in a style he had reserved to treat pupils after they blew up the second cauldron in a week. At Hogwarts, such reprimands had always taken place in public if the victims were Gryffindors. Snape had treated his Slytherins almost as harshly, but had at least moved the scene back into the Slytherin common room.

Spinner's End, as the place was called, was just as his mother had described it. What had she told him a year before? "Simple and clean, but without love. The place could use a woman's hand." When Bellatrix had snorted, her sister had added with an edge in her voice, "Oh, not your hands, Bella. Hands of a truly feminine woman."

Hours later, Draco noticed, he had been utterly mistaken. Snape didn't treat him like a student at fault, he treated him like vermin. It was worse than anything Longbottom ever had to endure. Although... it wasn't nearly as awful as an elf was treated at the Malfoys'.

Draco used up a dozen toothbrushes in cleaning the floor and kitchen carpets. He heaved tiles up the roof, then repaired it, and he tended to the garden.

If his warder was not satisfied, he sent Draco to bed without dinner after a whole day's work. Growing two inches in three months, Draco was quick in complying with the requests well enough to not run hungry.

The menial tasks of the first week rubbed Draco's soft, delicate, aristocratic skin raw until it grew harder with calluses. On every place of his body, Draco discovered muscles he had never known. He noticed within a short time that he grew physically stronger.

Severus Snape considered that he best receive his charge with the attitude he had always shown towards Gryffindors during detention. He needed to learn not to strut around and expect that his name open all doors for him. As it was unclear how much time the Dark Lord would give Severus, he needed to work quickly. Thus, he exchanged water with a thin solution of muscle growing potion that would resolve the lactic acid and help the body adapt to physical work.

He saw to it that the boy didn't suffer injuries or parch, but otherwise the boy would not thrive with pampering. Who had ever pampered Severus Snape?

Three weeks in, Draco was more in the rhythm and had even time to reflect about himself. He came to realise that he most likely survived this second failure because his family was a noble pure-blood breed. Riddle was surrounded with wizards obsessed with pure-bloodedness.

Enraged as the Dark Lord had been, he had known very well that both tasks for Draco had been unrealistic. He didn't have enough young, fertile pure-bloods to lose one for such a reason. A living, beaten-down Malfoy demoted to the lowest ranks of his army was incomparably more useful to him than a dead Malfoy could ever be.

He still felt like a house-elf except that the mornings were packed with lessons. He was to deepen and expand his knowledge in Potions and Duelling, but they also covered tricks for secretive operations, guerilla-style fighting techniques, sabotage and hiding traces. In a strict teacher-pupil relationship, Draco's lessons on survival techniques contained obscuring tracks, laying false tracks, detecting operation patterns, wordless spell casting and the elementary training in wandless magic.

In the beginning, Narcissa could be counted on to send an owl every day, providing sweets and chocolate as she had done during the school years. With equal precision, Severus Snape sent the bird off again with the complete load, except if there was fruit among the treats. As the weeks passed, the owl-exchange became more reasonable, and Draco was allowed to even add small wishes under the list of books, stationery or potions ingredients his teacher sent to Narcissa.

Five weeks into his personal training, his mother was allowed to visit them upon Snape's explicit invitation. Draco nipped her attempts to make his life more comfortable in the bud, and she soon accepted the conditions. While her anxious eyes tried to catch every detail of his environment, she finally conceded, "You're alive. That is all I need to know."

When his teacher's task allowed it, Draco went to field work with him; otherwise, he stayed at the house alone and cleaned or revised his lessons. He was in bed by ten every evening and out again at seven.

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They had their first long conversation when Death Eaters denounced to the Dark Lord that Severus Snape was possibly not as active as he should be. Consequently, he received a task to kill two young, Muggle-born wizards.

Together they observed the family life of the little boys. For the first time, Draco needed to know a lot about Muggles to see the patterns in their behaviour.

It was then that Draco understood that his idol of the first school years was not the proud pure-blood he had imagined and only educated later in the Muggle way. No, Severus Snape had a Muggle father. For the disgust on his face, Draco received yet another toothbrush and the command to clean the grout in the bathroom. "It helps to keep you focused. I'm speaking from experience," his supervisor added.

Hours later, the cold room was shiny clean. To Draco's relief, his guardian was satisfied. The lukewarm shower and dinner that evening could not have been more welcome if they had been up to Hogwarts standards. "You will not allow your emotions to show to your superiors," Snape ordered. "You cannot know what you reveal to them. Do I assume right that your arrogant father failed to inform you that his master, our master, is not a pure-blood himself? That he had a Muggle father? Close your mouth, Draco, before you catch a fly." It was the first time Snape addressed him with his first name.

The next day, Draco's stomach revolted as they developed a trick to lure the children away. He avoided giving himself away and tried to speak in a detached and cold manners as his mentor did, but he was slipping.

Severus killed one of the little boys indirectly, making a car speed up and hit him straight. Muggle police swarmed around as the two left the scene. The mother's desperate cry and the father's bleak face followed Draco into his dreams. Since he was sleeping on the Transfigured sofa next door to the ever-cold and calculating Snape, he fled into the icy bathroom every so often to calm down. The man had nerves of steel, and where there should be a heart he probably had a dark rock!

Draco gladly let Snape handle the other child alone. The boy, who was about eight years old, disappeared and was not seen again. In the Death Eater meeting, Snape declared he had dumped his body into the sea. "My Lord, I considered that the tasks were very similar, and even the locations close to each other. I understand that we still wish to leave parts of our activities opaque. Plotting two such very different courses of events should not cause suspicion at the Ministry. It also gave me ample opportunity to introduce techniques to my apprentice."

The Dark Lord agreed to this thought, albeit hesitantly. "You involved Malfoy in the planning and execution, Severus?"

"Yes, my Lord, we arranged units of field training around the quest, although you will not find a trace of his magic at the places, since it was my honour to serve you yet again."

"Very well. Malfoy? Recognise that I've been lenient with you. I have a third task for you that will determine your future. As your journeyman's piece, you will rid the earth of another Mudblood before her feet besmirch the sacred halls of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. If you cannot prove yourself worthy this time, it will be your end."

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At Draco's first confrontation with the blonde girl, he stiffened. He detested himself as much as the path he had to follow. He left the girl alive and unharmed. The look of her grey-blue eyes smiling at him followed him back to Spinner's End.

"Sir," he addressed his mentor, "I'm failing again. I cannot detach myself enough even from this little Mudblood to end her life. I don't understand how to do it, sir."

"Pathetic, Malfoy. Where is all the arrogance of your great name, the pure-blood family that is beyond the law and the Ministry?"

"I still cannot seem to master it. Even if she is a Mudblood and deserves death, I cannot do it, for she hasn't done anything to me."

"Get it over with a few times, and it will become easier," Snape noted, showing little concern. "You could start with imagining your victim as someone else, someone you loath. There would be such a person in your life, I trust."

"Yes, sir."

Upon his second confrontation with the girl, Draco met her all alone and lured her into a clutch of trees close to her home. Thinking of Potter, he aimed, but she reached out and asked curiously, "Hi again. What's that stick there, can I see it?" and he lowered his wand. The emotions had not been strong enough.

Remembering his own father made his blood boil, and he silenced her babble. Half-heartedly, he inflicted some pain on her, imagining she was Lucius. However, this image didn't hold: the girl wasn't a man, and her eyes not nearly as cold. His curse faded. She got up, panting and staring at Draco in utter disbelief. She even resembled Draco. She looked like...

When Draco realised that she looked like a little sister of his could look, his knees gave way, and he nearly dropped his wand. "Go, girl. Go!"

She was like the little sister he had been waiting for, the baby girl Lucius had killed on her fourth day because she had not appeared in the book of applicants for Hogwarts. She had been a Squib...a Muggle, born into the wizard world. Possibly she could have been a playmate of this little girl? Both of them were born to parents from a world they could not share forever. Did that justify their death?

As Draco turned to leave, Severus Snape appeared between the trees. They injured the girl severely to make an appearance, but they did not kill her. Snape changed her memory and sent another curse Draco had not recognised.

The next day, they saw a report in the Muggle newspaper: unexplainable injuries, coma, parents in shock.

The report in the Daily Prophet announced a brutal attack of Death Eaters.

For a week there was no word whether the girl had survived. At the Dark Lord's assembly, Snape wormed Draco out, explaining that, while she was surely dead, the Ministry didn't want to reveal this. "My Lord, they hide from us, and from the public, how much we actually achieve."

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How had their next discussion started? As a monologue, probably.

Draco finally found the courage to admit that he couldn't do it, that he was not a murderer. He had not really achieved his goal this day. He had not been thinking like a Death Eater should, that is, thinking of Potter or McGonagall as the enemy, the most hated person. Instead, his thoughts had circled around Lucius and even the Dark Lord forcing him to such deeds. He had also been thinking of his baby sister, who would be a beautiful little girl by now.

After an unbearable silence, Draco asked his mentor shyly how he coped, if there was a deeper secret.

Severus looked deeply into Draco's eyes...probably a lot deeper than Draco was comfortable knowing. He didn't make out if the constant itch he felt indicated Legilimency or just his incredible discomfort.

"Did you not already find a deeper secret, Draco?"

Yes, he had found a secret, and it was a terrible one: he, Draco Malfoy, Death Eater, hated the Dark Lord.

Again, there was only silence as a confirmation until Draco spoke again. "Do you also hate him, sir? What was it you did to the girl in the end?"

"A strong paralysis that holds her in a painless coma for at least two week."

"You did not kill her."

"No, Mr Malfoy, I did not kill her. As you said yourself, she has done nothing wrong, except for existing."

"You aren't a Death Eater. You taught me how to perform acts of sabotage because you are using them against Him. You're a spy."

In no time, Severus Snape towered over Draco. "Expelliarmus! I am and have been working for the other side for a very long time, Draco Malfoy."

Draco sat stock still to not provoke the man. Quietly, he spoke, "You've been fooling our master then, and you're doing it again now. Probably, Dumbledore even knew about your Vow. He has arranged for me to not kill him. Now you arranged to have me here. Why? Have you been hoping... Sir, do you really think I can do that?"

Draco reflected on the question himself. He had learned a lot in these last weeks, and most of it was about himself. Even if possibly he could become as hard and uncaring as his father and aunt or as the Carrows...he, Draco, did not want to become a Death Eater! He did not want to live in a world ruled by the Dark Lord.

Snape broke the silence. "I'll have to give you three options and not more than ten minutes to decide. Either you open your mind completely to me, allow unblocked Legilimency and then swear an Unbreakable Vow to join me. OR you'll be very thoroughly Obliviated here and now and will never again get any support from me. OR I will kill you right here now."

Draco did not need ten minutes to decide. There was still so much at stake, and here was a role his mentor believed he could fulfil. "I will join you, sir, if you take me."

"Then we should use first names when we're here, and soon also in public. Sit over here, and we'll begin. You have learned the basics of Occlumency, but at your stage I can still sense every barrier. Do not try my patience."

"I will not, Sir... Severus."

All his life, Draco had been dreading Legilimency. He vividly remembered how aggressively his father had always searched his brains for whatever betrayal or misbehaviour he might have committed. Worse even, the man had searched for every trifle and every little secret. He had intruded into Draco's private, most intimate live, checking which girls Draco might fancy, and where his fantasies about the girls took him.

Lucius Malfoy explored weaker people's minds with malevolence and joy just because he could.

Rather than that, Severus encouraged his young charge to show him all that he found worth showing. They went through all tasks Draco had ever received from his father. He had been spying on the Weasleys and Potter, mainly in their third year, and had searched all ways of sending information in and out the castle. They discussed Draco's relation to Umbridge, his in-house relations and potential relations Draco had built up with those other than Slytherins.

Severus was also very interested in visitors at the Malfoy estates during the holidays and visits they had made elsewhere.

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Severus learned Draco's honest feelings and accepted them and him. He was honestly sorry that he had to demand the Vow, but it could not be helped. They talked about its formulation and wrote it down on parchment.

The next day Severus asked Narcissa to bring fruit and Muggle money. He tolerated that she also had their towels exchanged with fluffy soft and clean ones. As she supervised the elf busying itself to do the same with their bed linen, he put them in a sleep-like state. Narcissa fell on the sofa, holding out her wand hand, her eyes neither closed nor fully open.

Draco and his mentor knelt inside a dark cloud made from Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder, and the Muffilato-spell muffled their voices.

Draco swore the Unbreakable Vow never to betray Severus or any member of the Order to the Dark Lord, to any of his potential followers or any Ministry official. The oath had no loophole. Draco would be dead before as much as two words would leave his mouth.

Severus included interrogations under Veritaserum or any other manipulation into the oath. Draco knew he would not survive those.

To Draco's surprise and relief, however, Severus limited the binding to half a year after his death or half a year after the Dark Lord's demise or absolutely two years – whatever comes first. A time limit was highly uncommon with Unbreakable Vows, and certainly two years was not considered a worthy time span at all.

To prevent details spilling out accidentally, Severus asked nothing more than Will you fulfil item one, item two and item three of our Vow?

Three times, Draco vowed. Three flames bound him while their binder was quite unaware of it.

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From the next day on, they trained almost as mates...comrades sitting in the same boat. Their balance was tipped by Draco's Vow, but it made little difference in their daily interactions.

They focused their training on untraceable sabotage, starting with a magical mirror and a deflection dome.

Tired of push-ups and contorting himself on the floor, Draco suggested that they train more realistically. Together they developed a physical and magical exercise of chasing each other in the woods. They worked out a way it would not arouse suspicion among the Muggles and an explanation they could give to the Dark Lord or a fellow Death Eater.

Whenever they were called to a task together, they laid tracks to lure Death Eaters astray or keep Order members or Aurors from the thick of the battle. They satisfied their master with as little harm to the victims as they could manage.

Spying on Order members, they exaggerated misleading details, at the same time dropping or inventing essentials.

However, Draco needed to stay in the background because his Occlumency skills still might not hold in the face of their master. They trained regularly, but Severus broke through too easily. "Do not make me aware of the barrier, or I will know where to probe. Concentrate! Legilimens!"

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In addition to his assignment in field work, Severus was also the Potions master and had to brew medical potions for the Death Eaters.

Severus had foregone to decorate his small lab as animately as his potions classroom had been, but his stocks were well filled, and, of course, there wasn't a substance Draco knew that could not be found. On the other hand, there were two shelves he wasn't to touch.

He had to strain his eyes to identify his ingredients. If there was something he would change here, it was the light. With a sneer, Severus pointed out that a Potions master had more means than his eyes to know a brew.

"Some of my activities will be easier now that you are aware of them," Severus remarked one day as they descended into the lab.

Severus followed several research projects for the Dark Lord, including protection potions against the hexes most commonly used by the Aurors. Severus had to admit that such a protection would probably be possible, given the lack of innovative spellwork amongst the Ministry officials. All he could do was to delay his progress, but he was running low on excuses. "Your training was one of the better ones I had," he noted.

With ears and eyes wide open, Draco took in the revelation that Severus also ran a secret research project to improve Wolfsbane. Two werewolves of of Greyback's pack served as testers. He had even seen them contacting Severus, but had not known the purpose. "They can come here from now on," Severus noted.

Of the Wolfsbane potion currently propagated...and approved by the Ministry...a Lycanthrope had to take one whole goblet full regularly three times a day for the whole week before the full moon. If they forgot it even once, the person would transform into an uncontrolled, vicious monster. The slip rate was so high that the Ministry demanded that werewolves leave human society every month, even if they believed they had been careful enough.

Given the sheer amount of potion needed, the tricky brew had to be set up twice a month for each Lycanthrope and could thus also be botched as often.

Severus assumed that the potion could be concentrated and the brew simplified. Then there would possibly even be a market to commercialise the product. Greyback had made sure that there were clients enough.

An additional problem was a certain amount of carelessness that came along with the malady. Remus Lupin was a living example for this lack of responsibility. It might partly be in his personality, but it had been amplified by his condition to the extend that he had endangered his peers and later his pupils. The new potion should also tackle this attitude.

For many of the active substances in the Wolfsbane, a single dose per day would suffice, and for some even three doses per week would be enough. A few, however, had to be taken regularly for the whole week before the full moon. Severus had identified potential replacements for many of these. Currently, however, they still mutually influenced each other in unidentified ways.

While Severus replaced another active substance with a more long lasting substitute, then hastily scooped the froth, Draco made the usual batch of Skele-Gro and the lust potion for the men, Ludwig's Lust, in parallel. By now, he easily mastered controlling two cauldrons of each. Draco continued with two batches of ointments for skin wounds, and a special eye ointment. All of these were for the Death Eaters.

With his thoughts on the two brave Lycanthropes of Greyback's pack who had shown an interest in testing the new Wolfsbane, Draco chopped up his ingredients. These two had not given up. Neither would he.

In a deviation to the original recipe, Draco added two dragon eyeballs he knew would gradually cause liver cell damage. They were a perfect match for Ludwig's Lust since most of the consummates who enjoyed overdosing it were strong drinkers, too. They donned the brew greedily enough to disregard the tiny taste of vinegar this additive caused. The eye ointment on the other hand got an additive of shredded snapdragon roots that made the eyes more sensitive to light and thus matched well the blinding spell Draco and Severus liked to use.

It had taken Draco a while to understand the idea behind the love potion. Or more exactly lust potion, for it didn't enhance anything more than men's physical needs.

They didn't have enough children. While it might not be a great loss that the Crabbes and Goyles had only one son each, the fertility problems were equally severe if not worse among the higher ranks and in the Inner Circle. Their master held the pure-blood traditions and family rules in high regard. So he would not demand noble young as Draco to marry anyone his family couldn't approve of. In fact, he had made a disastrous attempt to do so shortly before his first downfall. Even if the forced couple had not been too unhappy, their infuriated families had managed to wriggle their offspring out of the need to produce any children their traditions would consider bastards. Many a Death Eater had killed his daughter before a recognised family feud was broken through forced marriage with the rival clan.

His insensibility to old family traditions, rites and even spells had cost their master quite an amount of supporters and had made him careful now.

The love potion was his new attempt to fortify their basis in the future. If it went according to their master's plans, Slytherin house would receive twice the amount of children in the future. Furthermore, the Dark Lord had found out that their wives being well attended for also made also the men more at peace with their lives and consequently with their tasks. To Draco's knowledge, however, the Inner Circle could not show any success yet. There was certainly little hope for his aunt to ever develop motherly feelings, or actually hope would be that any child would be spared from having her as a mother. The Rosiers, Averys and Mulcibers had led a childless life. The Notts had already been fairly old when Theodore had finally been born.

While the potions had boosted the morale, it had not caused any wonders. Among the less noble families in the middle ranks of the Death Eaters there had been some pregnancies reported. Marcus Flint, the chaser who had brought Draco into the Quidditch team so long ago, was among the fathers-to-be.

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Severus' kitchen skills were marginally better than Draco's. While he had lived on his own and knew well enough how to feed himself, he didn't bother much beyond the food's nourishing aspects. Three consecutive days, they would have the same meal, simply because it saved them the hassle of cooking for two days. Today they made a huge amount of soup with lentils, pot barley, pork meat and some carrots and had sandwiches to go with it.

Similarly, Severus dealt with most of his household. The furniture had been replenished upon need. If a chair had broken beyond repair, the cheapest chair had sufficed to replace it. His four chairs around a simple kitchen table all had different height and width, and certainly different material and colour. Cleaning was not done haphazardly but with little attention to the needs of different materials. The very same spell to clean china, metal and wood – it surely worked but it wasn't becoming for the surfaces, certainly not for colour or elements of decoration.

Every Thursday, they reinforced the protective spells on the house. The simple Muggle building didn't keep wards as easily and long-lasting as magic buildings. Lucius...and later Draco...repeated the spells on Malfoy Manor only twice a year. Draco assumed Hogwarts castle with the hand-selected stones was safe for a decade per respelling round.

"You should have the walls and roof replaced with magical stone," Draco had commented once.

"I have mastered the spells, and now we are two for the work."

"But still, it is a nuisance. Maybe you could have the walls coated with slate?"

"If you feel like paying for a renovation, you're most welcome."

They slowly made their way around the house, using a magical path between them and their right neighbour that wasn't accessible for Muggles. They repeated the same spell every yard. Thanks to the continuously cold and unfriendly weather, the circle surrounding the house in the proper distance for spelling it became increasingly muddy. Five rounds were needed to get all the layers of wards in place: Muggle repellents, Apparition ward, bad-intention detectors, general approaching announcers, spell warning.

Draco had learned that Muggles let people come right to their doors where they can cause a sound chime... if they so chose.

Severus' home also needed a set of stabiliser spells to keep the old building standing upright. Back inside, dropping their mucky Wellington boots, Draco wondered what made Severus keep this ruin of a house. He could not imagine any of his parents' Death Eater friends ever setting foot in here. Well, his aunt and mother had done so, but their comments had been correspondingly derogatory.

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It was almost November when they had created so intimate a relationship that Draco dared to bring up the conditions of his Vow. "Severus, you limited the binding to half a year after your own death or half a year after the Dark Lord's demise. You even limited it to an absolute maximum of two years. Why was that?"

"Do you prefer to be bound longer?"

"No, and you know that. However, a time limit is highly uncommon with Unbreakable Vows, and certainly two years is not considered a worthy time span at all. You could have bound me for the rest of my life."

"I could not, because your mother's magic wasn't very strong, given her condition."

"Maybe. But you know that she would have done everything to have me live. You even decided to limit not to all conditions together but to whatever comes first. Severus Snape does not do such complex things without deep consideration."

"Then, probably, I did not."

Severus huffed in annoyance, but finally delivered an explanation. He knew that he would die in the field, and this Vow should not restrict Draco's life in any unduly way afterwards. "You will then decide for yourself what to do."

If even six months after their master had fallen, large numbers of loyal Death Eaters walked freely, there was no chance for Severus whatsoever. But...so his mentor said...Draco was not to concern himself with this. "I haven't got a chance of living that long."

Even more calmly, he explained the last time limit. "If we haven't conquered the Dark Lord in the time of two years, we are all doomed. Your life ought to be back in your hands to exploit any knowledge you have, even if it means delivering me. Although, this scenario is not realistic since I will be dead far sooner than that."

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Big thanks to Greengecko and cnjstout for their untiring support and help.

To reply to some (very much appreciated) reviews: this little story here is not the reason why my bigger project is so slow. It is simply slow in itself :-(