Draco shook Rita Skeeter’s scarlet tipped hand and rose.

“Thank you very much, Ms. Skeeter, I’m so grateful for the opportunity.”

“Save the act for the celebrities, kid,” she said. “Just be here Monday morning.”

“I will,”Draco promised. He left the Daily Prophet walking on air. Harry was waiting outside. A small witch glanced at Harry, blushed and ran away.

“Did you get it?” Harry asked.

“I start Monday. Doing what, she didn’t say.”

Harry laughed.

"My house isn't far, "Harry said."You feel up to trying the Tube?"

"I don't want to ride in any tubes," Draco replied. They Apparated instead, landing in a deserted square of Georgian and Victorian houses that were neglected and had a closed-off look. It was dusk and Draco thought the temperature was low for June. Harry stood quietly and concentrated as the houses numbered eleven and thirteen moved apart to reveal number twelve. Harry hurried across the street and up the steps, and Draco followed. Harry fitted the key in the lock and Draco entered behind him.

He remembered this house now. The long dark corridor, with its musty green wallpaper, the high ceilings, the narrow staircase, the house elf heads nailed to the wall - he'd seen this house in countless family photographs, and he'd been here a few times as a toddler.

"My godfather gave it to me before he died, "Harry explained. He waved his wand and turned on the gas lamps. "You can put your bag in the sitting room. Kreacher's probably put some kind of meal together."

Harry left Draco to wander around the sitting room. A gigantic family-tree tapestry was the focal point of the Victorian style room. Draco wandered closer and examined it. There were burn marks over some of the names but the names Lucius, Narcissa, Bellatrix, Rodolphus and Draco were still there. Draco reached for a pair of curtains, wondering what was behind them.

"Don't open that,"Harry said. He'd returned with a tray of pasta and breadsticks and a couple of glasses of wine. "It's Sirius's mum's portrait and she screams at me. We tried to pry her off the wall but she's stuck. "

"Interesting house, "Draco said. Harry shrugged.

"It's a house."

"It's the ancestral home of my mother's family, "Draco said. "Technically, as the oldest surviving Black male, this house should be mine."

"Now wait a minute!" Harry said. Draco held up his hands.

"Don’t get your pants in a twist, Potter. I'm just saying I won't be indebted to you for giving me a place to live when it's my house too."

"I didn't want you to feel indebted to me," Harry said. "You can even redecorate, I don't care."

"I need some air, "Draco said. He left before Harry could say anything and went for a stroll around the square while he struggled with a new type of confusion. It was really cold for June. Draco shivered. He heard the door to number twelve open and shut: Harry was following him again. Fine. Let him. Draco felt worse by the minute, it was as if he couldn't pull himself out of this…Oh no…

Something tall and black and wispy floated toward him with purpose.

He was younger, but only by a year or two. He felt the fetid breath of a werewolf on his face, sharp claws ripped at his shirt. A high, cold voice was issuing directions to the wolf- man. Draco didn't fight back, he knew he wouldn't survive if he tried. His parents couldn't help him, they'd been sent from the room before it started. The man on top of him seemed to think his tears and pleading were funny.

Draco stood paralyzed in the street as the Dementor came closer. Harry raised a trembling arm and pointed his wand at it. Draco sought his mind for a happy thought. He was- he was -

Five, and standing on a chair, with a little spoon in his hand. Severus had his arm around Draco's waist to keep him from falling as they stirred the potion together.

"Now we add the gillyweed, and you see what color it turns? It has to be sky blue, not midnight blue or royal blue. "

"Can I add the last part? Please, please?"

"Alright, but be careful. You don't want to put in too much." Draco was filled with such happiness at the memory, he focused hard on it.

"EXPECTO PATRONUM!" They both shouted. Harry's stag Patronus shot forward, with Draco's close behind.

"Draco?" Harry panted when the Dementors disappeared. "Your Patronus-"

"Hmm?" Draco said. "I use it because it was Professor Snape's."

Harry stared at him with a strange expression. He blinked his green eyes. Draco flushed and swayed slightly on his feet.

“You don’t look well,”Harry said. “We had better get inside.”

When they were back in the sitting room, Draco sank onto the sofa and shuddered. Harry looked worried.

“Try to eat something.”

“I can’t eat,”Draco said. “I’m going to throw up. I know I am.”

Harry held out Draco’s glass of wine and Draco took a grateful sip in spite of himself. It was actually good wine, Kreacher must have chosen it.

“Wine?” he asked. “And pasta? Harry, is this a date?”

“No!” Harry said, adorably flustered. His ears turned pink. “I mean, if you don’t want it to be a date, it’s not a date.”

Draco shrugged.

“I don’t know. I’m kind of dealing with other things right now. I have to put my life back together.”

“I understand,”Harry said. “Kreacher will make up a guest room for you.”

Draco finished his drink and placed it on the coffee table. Harry should have put out coasters and Draco made a face at the wet ring his glass left. Harry summoned the house elf and gave him instructions.

“When I see Dementors, I hear my mother screaming,” Harry said. “Voldemort is taunting her, and she’s pleading for my life. You seem to get really upset by the Dementors too.”

“I have memories of things I think I’m not supposed to remember,”Draco said. “I have gaps in what I can remember normally, unless Dementors are near.”

“That’s what happened to me,” Harry said. “I only remembered my mother screaming when I first met the Dementors.. But what do you see?”

Draco shifted uncomfortably.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Sorry.”

“I’m really tired, you mind if I go to bed?” Draco stood up and headed for the stairs.

“Uh, okay, you can use the first room on the left,” Harry said. “There’s a bathroom across the hall from it.” He looked awkwardly at his hands as Draco left. Draco found that Kreacher had created quite a comfortable guest room, he’d cleaned the place from top to bottom and put fresh sheets and pillowcases on the bed. Draco unpacked his small bag, enchanted to hold more than it seemed like it could on the outside. He hung his things up in the wardrobe.

Draco changed into his grey silk pajamas, brushed his teeth, washed his face and slipped underneath the heavy red velvet comforter. He snuffed out the candles with a wave of his wand but left the curtains open so he could see the moon. Draco drifted off to sleep soon after.

No, please! Leave him alone, do what you want with us but leave our son-

FOOL! You failed me, Lucius and this…innocent…will pay for it. How do you like that?

Master-

Leave us, Lucius, but remain outside the door. And tell Fenrir I’ve got a surprise for him.

Then there was nothing but pain, and blood and screaming.

“Draco!” Harry gasped. Draco’s body jerked and his arm flailed out, nearly striking Harry. “Shh! You were screaming-”

“Nightmare,”Draco said. Harry sat on the edge of the bed, he’d turned the lights on again and they hurt Draco’s eyes.

“I just wanted to make sure you were okay,” Harry said and he got up to leave.

“Thanks,”Draco mumbled, embarrassed. He’d never had this nightmare before, he’d had plenty of nightmares since his life went to Hell but never this one before today.

“You should tell someone what Greyback did to you. It’s too late to make him pay but maybe someone could help you.”

“Get out of my head,”Draco whispered.

“I didn’t mean to,” Harry said. “I won’t do it again, I promise. But I can put in a good word for your mum to get that governess job, if you want. She did save my life.”

Draco covered his face with a pillow and groaned.

“You’re usually better at it than I am,” Harry said. “Occlumency. Except when you’re scared.”

“Why do you think Greyback did something to me?”Draco asked. “Just because I dreamed it?”

“Maybe someone modified your memory,”Harry said. “You said you had gaps.”

“My parents wouldn’t do that to me!” Draco cried. Or would they? They were hiding something from him, he knew it and it was about that bloody shirt. They would try to help him, try to make him forget it because they couldn't stand seeing him the wreck he must have been. Draco turned his face away from Harry and put up his shields.

“I didn’t say they would,”Harry said. "Draco,before I go?"

"Yes, Harry?"

"You're not a werewolf, are you?"

"No, you dolt."

"Oh. Good."

Sunday morning dawned clear and warm. Harry and Draco ate cinnamon buns and pumpkin juice in their pyjamas at the kitchen table before departing to their individual rooms to get dressed. Draco chose his dress robes carefully. He wore black trousers and a black shirt underneath a black satin waistcoat. Over that he wore black silk robes and added his Slytherin tie as a final touch.

He passed Harry's open bedroom door. Harry was tying his tie and Draco stopped to watch him. Harry really was quite handsome in a messy way.

"So that's what Muggles wear to these?" He asked and grinned. Harry was in a regular black suit, like a very sad Muggle businessman.

"Yeah,"Harry said. "Are you ready to go?"

"Just let me grab my speech, "Draco said. He slipped into his room and tucked the rolled up piece of parchment into his dress robe pocket. They headed out the front door and Apparated off the top step.

Draco popped into the forest clearing a minute before Harry and just after his parents. Lucius glanced at Harry suspiciously but they were joined by Hermione and Ron before he could make a rude remark. Narcissa was in a black velvet Edwardian gown trimmed with jet beads, she also wore an emerald choker and a flowing black veil over her face. Ron wore shabby black dress robes, but Hermione wore a knee length black Muggle style dress. Lucius also wore a Slytherin tie.

Lucius gave Draco an awkward shoulder squeeze as they set off across the grass. A few small gravestones came into view when they crested the top of the hill. Flowers, lilac and forsythia burst through the stone wall that ran alongside the path. Wooden chairs were grouped together by a pond, under the shade of a large tree. There was a podium in front of a medium sized grey stone slab. Soft music played out of an enchanted gramophone.

Lucius escorted his family to seats at the front and center. Small clumps of people in dress robes incorporating green and silver began arriving and taking seats. The crowd wasn’t as big as it had been for Dumbledore, but more people had come than Draco ever expected. The Hogwarts professors were there, in the front row with the Malfoys. Blaise Zabini and Gregory Goyle waved at Draco, who smiled and beckoned them over.

"My friends don't sit in the back," he said. When everyone was seated, Hagrid brought the casket forward and placed it on the stone slab. Hagrid hid his face in a giant polka dotted handkerchief and sniffled. Professor Flitwick raised his wand and the music faded away. Professor Slughorn waddled to the podium, fat fingers hooked into his lapels.

"We are gathered here today to remember Professor Severus Snape. It was my job to succeed Professor Snape as head of Slytherin House. Those were some big shoes to fill. Severus ran his house well, his students were smart, certainly inventive! (the crowd laughed softly) and if not always the best behaved house they were loyal. They ARE loyal," he amended, to more soft laughter. "In their own way. We don't charge into battle, we attack from behind. We recognize grey areas of morality and we save our own skins when we can.

That doesn't mean we're cowards or that we don't care. Perhaps it took even more courage for a Slytherin to stay and fight You Know Who when their friends were running away or joining the other side. There were some Slytherins who provided the means for the destruction of the Dark Lord, even if it wasn't on the field of battle. One of those Slytherins was Severus Snape. "

Slughorn gave them a brief and humorous overview of Snape's life, that desperately tried to make light of the darkness and took his seat, wiping at his eyes.

A couple of other teachers went up and spoke about Snape. Finally, Professor McGonagall nodded to Draco, who rose and took his place at the podium, speech in hand. He unrolled it, it rolled itself back up again and Draco had to flatten it with his palm.

"It's customary at a funeral to play a piece of music the deceased liked,"Draco began. "But I couldn't pick one out. I just kept thinking "He won't like that one" or "He hates that singer" or "He'll call those lyrics trite." He might even rise from the grave to demand, " and here Draco did his Snape imitation again, "MR. MALFOY turn that godawful racket down!"

The crowd laughed.

“I wasn’t sure about the flowers either, but you can’t really have a funeral without flowers, so I settled on these,” he gestured at the black lilies arranged around the slab and attached to a few of the chairs, “I don’t think he’d be bothered by lilies.

"What can I tell you about what Severus Snape meant to my life? I'd known him since I was a baby. I used to spit up on him, and he would patch me up when I fell off my toy broom. I would watch him make potions and sometimes he'd let me help. At school, he always took time out to encourage me, I saw a different side of him than the other students. Severus talked to me about things, things other people didn't think I deserved to know.

I spent more time with him than I did my own father once I came to school. He was there for all the big events-most of my teenage firsts. And I learned about other things from him, like right and wrong and how to be stronger. Severus taught me how to be a man.

There's a lot people didn't know about Severus.

He did something that is one of the hardest things a human being can do. He changed. He went against what his friends and family believed, because what they believed was wrong. Change is hard. Redemption is hard. But nobody has to do it alone. As Headmaster Dumbledore said, "Help is always available at Hogwarts for those who ask."

He did it for love. He lived his whole life motivated by love of one person, he didn't think he mattered compared to what he could do to help stop He Who Must Not Be Named. He put himself on the line to protect us the best way he could. Because he loved.

But people might ask who could possibly love Severus Snape in return? Well, isn't it obvious? We did. I-I did."

Draco blinked back his tears and finished with the quote that Hermione had helped him find.

"Second Timothy chapter four, verses six through eight comes from a letter that Saint Paul wrote to his student just before he died. It says, "For I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith."

There was a moment of silence in which everyone was left alone with their thoughts and prayers and tears. When Draco judged the time was right, he turned to the casket and touched his wand to the tip. Green flames spread across the bottom of the wood. In minutes, the casket was engulfed. When the flames had devoured the wood, the fire changed shape and turned to a simple black square of marble with Severus' name and dates on it. Draco raised his wand again and inscribed on the stone the words He Loved.

Draco slipped away alone when the funeral was over. He walked past the Memorial to the Fallen, to a dark little corner of the grounds where a few cheap gravestones stood surrounded by a wrought iron fence with spikes on the top. These were the graves of Death Eaters who were not Hogwarts students and had no families. There were anti Dark Magic wards around the place. Draco stopped just outside the gate and stared down at the stone that read "Fenrir Greyback."

"I won,"Draco said. "I won and you lost."

Quiet footsteps indicated the approach of someone else. Draco turned to find Harry watching him. Harry had the same question in his eyes that he’d had before, but now Draco knew how to answer.

“I’m ready to go home now,”Draco said. He smiled and took Harry’s hand, and they went home together, two men with something to live for.