A.N. Holy moly this is sooo late... Ummm woah, I never thought that I would get this written. I've been sick and schools caught up with. Sorry. It's really short too.

The front door swung closed behind Severus loudly several hours after Harry had laid down, but he was unable to stop from thinking. He rolled out from underneath the blankets and reached down to the foot of the bed where Volos liked to sleep. The snake was curled up in messy loops, his eyes closed and Harry stared at him as he scratched down his back.

Harry missed Hedwig he thought dully as he stared out the window at the darkened sky. He had not had her long and she had spent most of the time he had had her in the school owlery, but he had hoped over the school year that he could talk to her about the Dursley's. When Hermione and Ron had just never owled him, he'd wished that he could confide in her. He hated that he had forgotten her, had left her alone with the disgusting muggles. Saying it like that made the word feel dirty, he thought iddly. Muggles.

A sharp knock resounded against his door pulled him out from his thoughts, and he whispered out a hushed, "Come in."

The door creaked open revealing the blonde boy from across the hall. Draco stepped forward slowly, as if he wasn't quite sure whether or not he had really been invited in even though they both know Severus has left them. They both heard the banging of the front door as he left.

"I wanted to say I'm sorry, Potter." Draco started off slowly. "I never apologized for scaring you, yesterday. I wanted to actually say it… I wanted to talk though. About your reaction, and some other things."

Harry didn't look up from Volos, who was still lying quietly on the bed curled loosely, his eyes shut firmly in what seemed to be sleep."What do you want to talk about then."he asked lightly as he continued scratching lightly at Volos.

"I'm going to tell you a story." Draco said, sitting down on the floor with his knees pulled up to his chest, fingers pulling at the ends of his pajama bottoms.

"Once upon a time when a Mother was very young, she was not a mother. She was one of three sisters who belonged to a very, very old very, very powerful family. This big family did not put much stock into their three daughters because they were simply daughters and not sons. But these three daughters did have a very important function." he paused sneering."They could marry."

"As this was their sole asset, it was obvious from the time of their birth that they would be promised to very wealthy suitors to increase their families profitability and to breed heirs of great power. As the third daughter, though, it was traditional for betrothal contract to be filled for both of her elders sisters first, and at this time impressive pedigrees were uncommon because many families had died off in the war with a very powerful man named Grindelwald. So her mother and father decided to wait until their youngest child was slightly older before finding a suitable match with a young man by the name of Prince. Meanwhile, the eldest two girls grew and grew and became women."
"By the time the eldest daughter was sixteen, her suitor had become infatuated with her, the older heir of Lord Abraxas, and was a young blonde man with gray eyes. She was very disinterested in him and his money, and upon the age of seventeen she ran away with another, unsuited, man. The families second daughter proved to be a disappointment as well. When she was very young, the families curse of insanity had poisoned her away. Despite being hidden away long enough for her marriage to be completed, she would never produce any children. The third daughter seemed to be the family's salvation though. With her incomplete marriage contract- to the half blood Prince who had reemerged into the wizarding world several years after the near extinction of the family- canceled she was forced into a marriage with the man who deeply coveted her estranged sister."

"This man was a full two years her senior, and so she opted out of taking a sixth and seventh year. This was to formalize the marriage, and to hide the fact that she was already growing with child. She asked the man she almost married to help her keep from giving birth before the nine month period had ended, and so the child became a woman became a mother. The baby was born in February, and the mother became afraid for her child. Many times, because there was a war going on and the child's father was a part of this war, was a deep part of the war. The woman feared for her sister, because her husband named the child something so peculiar that made her weep. Her husband named the child Draconis after her sister, who even now he still yearned for, Lucius for the blood he bore, and Malfoy to remind her of the man she had married. And she hated him. She hates him now just as much as the day I was born." The blonde stopped abruptly.

"I know what I am to my mother and father." He started again. "To my father I am an obligation and to my mother, I symbolize what she could have had with someone else."

"With Prince?" Harry asked quietly.

Misjudging the nature of the the question Draco scowled at the other boy," He was not a willing participant. His grandfather attempted to marry him off, though he died before he could manage it. Severus never even met the man as he refused to associate with muggle filth, which he definitely saw Severus as."

"Severus?," Harry questioned confused. "What do you mean?"

"Severus is the last of the Prince line, but his mother ran off with a muggle and produced him. The half-blood Prince, although he didn't get to keep the name or inherit much of anything from his grandfather. When the contract was canceled, he removed Severus from his will. He couldn't stand muggles or anyone of dirty blood."

"Then why did he try to marry him off to a pure blood?"

"Better to breed out the rotten blood than take more of it in, Potter. It's your turn."

"What?" Harry sat staring at the blonde nearly stunned.

"You get to tell me a story now, preferably as honest as mine was. Severus gave me the idea earlier when I asked him how to get to know you better since we are kind of stuck together."

"Stuck together?"

"The Vow's Potter. Severus said we each swore something of a Subservience Vow to each other. We have to get along somewhat to make sure we fulfill the requirements of the Vow." Harry groaned. He had barely even thought of the vow since making it the previous night, but he recognized the approach threat Draco was using. It was mutual exchange of potentially damaging information.

He also saw what Professor Snape got out of having this conversation take place, which was having Harry talk about the abuse. He had been ignoring the subject every time the older man had tried to gently bring it up. Maybe talking about it with Draco would be easier.

"Fine. But you better not interrupt me, Malfoy. Where should I start. " he said glancing back down at Volos who was still hidden quite well in the dark blankets on the bed.

"Wherever you want. It is your story after all."

"I suppose it is." Harry chuckled darkly before composing himself and laying back into the bed, his left hand falling against Volos..

"When I was very small, all I knew was darkness. My first memories are of my darkened cupboard and huddling at the floor by the door crack terrified of the encompassing darkness. That is until Aunt Petunia hit me in the head with the door enough times to realise what I was doing. Then she had Uncle Vernon install foam piping on the bottom of the door frame."

"This was years after the had installed the padding on the cupboard walls and extra insulation inside walls. Not to mention the locks on the cupboard door. That was when I was very young, when I first came to live with the Dursley's. "

"Sometimes my Aunt would remember to let me out so I could use the bathroom. Other times I had a bucket. When I was on strict punishment they would take the bucket away and have me in there for days. I don't think they actually started abusing me until-"

"Potter that is abuse." Draco interrupted firmly.

"No, that is neglect not abuse. And you said you wouldn't interrupt. Do you want me to stop?"

"No. You obviously need to talk about this.

Harry took a deep breath before continuing. "I didn't learn my own name until I started Primary school. Instead I learned how to cook full course meals and prepare desserts. I learned how to keep an entire house clean, how to do laundry." he met Draco's eyes, "I learned how to be quiet, how to hide, when to cower and when to beg for it to stop."

" They didn't start hitting me until I started showing magic. And when I did, it was terrifying. I was accustomed to being smacked around by the age of nine, but it was absolutely nothing to the first time Uncle Vernon thrashed me." Harry stopped abruptly, having almost forgotten that Draco was is in the same room listening to his every word.

"I don't want to talk about this anymore." Harry said pulling the covers over his head and revealing the massive Taipan lying in his bed to the unaware boy on the floor.

Severus made his way through the rows and rows of identical houses, ignoring the dead silence of the street as dragon hide boots clicked resoundly. He counted the numbers on the front of each house along Wisteria Walk, despite the fact that he knew the exact house he was going to. Privet drive number four.

He knew he wasn't a nice man. Severus had known that since before he understood what nice was. Since before he had met Lily Evans and knew what devotion meant. Despite that though, Severus understood very well what kinds of vile thoughts could affect child abusers, how disgusting they were, and most importantly, how nothing would make the abuser stop unless they were completely removed from the vicinity of any possible victim. Severus knew. He had experienced his own father's abuse until the man had finally died only a few days after Severus had initially joined the death eaters.

Severus also knew how to murder. He had done it, after all, killing his father and many, many subsequent others while in his service to the Dark Lord. There were few deaths he had truly relished, truly enjoyed carrying out though, and his father was one of those few. He had had to think about it, honestly and truly consider every possible angle before committing to anything regarding the Dursley family. It was why he had waited as long as he had to revisit the family.

He wanted their punishment to hurt, to make them simply, unforgettably irrevocably miserable. He wanted them to burn.

Severus knew though that the desire to kill them was foolish. For some inexplicable, now horrifying reason, the headmaster had chosen to shield the most disgusting family of muggles from true harm when he placed Harry Potter with them nearly twelve years ago. If Severus wished to take retribution for what the small boy now in his care had suffered it would have to be… discrete.

Severus smiled darkly. Discrete he could definitely do.

Stepping out from Privet Drive Number Four at three in the morning, Severus scraped his boots off against the concrete and lifted his left arm higher so the owl gripping tightly to his forearm could get a decent amount of lift. The snowy owl hooted loudly in gratitude and flew off to find her master. Severus had also acquired a large trunk, which he had simply shrunk and placed into his pockets, but despite this, he was obviously an odd sight to the suburban area, even without the owl.

Disregarding this, especially as Severus himself could care less about any of these muggles, made his way down the street in an increasingly sour mood. His discoveries within the disgusting place had definitely shed some light on Dumbledore's manipulations. It was very simple.

There were no wards on Privet Drive Number Four.

Actually, he could tell that there had been wards very recently in place, but it seemed as though someone had removed them. Perhaps even yesterday. And in the fibers of those remaining echos of powerful blood wards, Severus something that had made his heart almost stop beating from the very shock of it. It was an old spell. An ancient curse that fed on magic, could stint it, rot it and permeate deeply every vessel of a wizard's body. But if it didn't… The effects would be astonishing. Power that was not broken, under the potestatem truncas curse would florish, into something much greater than the simple power of an everyday witch or wizard. Severus still did not want to jump to conclusions, and he had trusted Dumbledore for so long, but he could not see any way to defend his long time mentor.

It was on that note that Severus apparated back to Spinner's end.