He was nervous about seeing his father in only two short days, but he needed to do something about Sara. Once she left Hogwarts she would lose her protection. Sure she would have Harry, but even Hero Boy couldn't watch over her every moment of the day and Lucius would soon tire of letters and the whole cat and mouse game. It was wearing Sara down, he could see it in her face when they spoke about it. She wasn't sleeping, make-up inadequately concealed dark circles under her eyes, which were distant and troubled. He watched her pick at her food from across the Great Hall and she seemed to be in deep thought at all times. Clothes that once fit her precisely now clung to a thinner frame and even Harry seemed concerned. Potter treated her like something delicate and fragile. Something easily broken. He leapt to his feet after every meal to help her out of her chair, as if she were ill. Even tonight at the End of Year Feast, Draco had noticed Potter staring with a dreadful expression at the black in Sara's hair, which went clear around to the back of her head and was rather frightening if you knew what it meant.
It was last Saturday night, almost a week ago, that he had decided to meet with his father. He'd snuck out of the Slytherin common room for one last trip to Hogsmead. He tired early and left the Three Broomsticks after only two butterbeers and crept silently back through the castle. Music drifted through the corridors as he'd neared the Great Hall and he'd hidden himself behind a stone pillar and watched her.
She sat at the piano in the light of a single candle, dressed completely in black, her cape brushed back over her shoulders and a golden serpent gleaming brilliantly around her arm as she sang a song so morose it had him feeling wretched and desperate before he could even make out the words. He'd felt tears well up in his eyes as he listened and felt a pain so maddening and so complete he'd wanted to run from the hall, but the emotions were foreign, drifting in through his ears and he knew they were hers and that this way the way that she felt. Just as he thought his heart was breaking, that he would succumb completely to this misery, her fingers faltered, and her voice broke into dreadful, disturbing sobs. Her elbows crashed down on the keys as her head fell into her hands, sending a startling blast of discord echoing through the hall.
Draco hadn't slept that night. Back in his room he'd paced the floor until he'd made two decisions. One, he would agree to his father's dinner offer and two, he would send Harry a letter as soon as he left King's Cross.
* * *
On the second to last day of school, Sara headed down to Snape's lab after dinner and found him standing over a large cauldron of bubbling goo. He smiled when she came in and abandoned his station. The Slytherins had lost the House Cup to Gryffindor no more than an hour before, but he showed no sign of defeat. He was humming and in a splendid mood. "Hello, my dear."
"Hello, Severus. Is the antidote ready?"
He handed her two small stoppered bottles. The larger one is the antidote."
"Thanks so much, Sevvie. I can't wait to get started on my experiment!" Her smile was a welcome sight and he wanted to make it last.
He wrinkled his brow in mock anger. "If you ever call me that again, I'll slip liquid fire into your hangover potion."
She slipped the bottles into her pockets, remembering when she'd asked for them a week before. For an experiment, she'd said, to see if I can prove a point. He'd accepted her lacking explanation readily and without doubt. Now she had them and her expression turned serious. "Severus," she asked, "why are you so good to me?"
"I'm not sure." He admitted, going back to give his cauldron a quick stir with a thin wooden paddle. "Perhaps I miss the company of your mother. I see so much of her in you."
Her voice fell to a whisper. "Is that why you push me toward Draco? Because you were like him once? Another lost soul teetering on the edge of darkness, watching the girl he loves go off with someone else?"
The Girl in the Tower Chap 16
Start from the beginning
