Epilogue

"Three potions."

Draco winced, but kept his head tilted down so that his Head of House couldn't see. Snape held up three fingers pointedly. "Two calming potions and a sedative that could knock out a hippogriff and he is still attempting to get out of bed to strangle you."

Draco looked off to the side nervously. "Yes, Professor." He sounded like a bloody frog. Stupid Harry, he needn't have choked him so hard.

'Yes, he did.'

Shut up.

"Would you mind telling me what exactly you did to incur the wrath of Harry Potter?"

Told him I killed your unborn child in an act of self-preservation. "I've no..."

"Mr. Malfoy, before you finish that, let me remind you that he will eventually calm down enough to speak and I highly doubt he will be interested in keeping your secrets." Draco bit his lip thoughtfully. "Need I remind you that it took three grown men to pull Potter off you? I doubt they would be so inclined to help you a second time."

With a hefty sigh, Draco took a step back from Snape, carefully gauging his distance to make sure he was out of immediate arm reach. "I told him... I thought it was mine, Professor. He told me about everything and I... I had thought it was mine."

He couldn't bring himself to give a better explanation. Besides, the entire hall had gone deadly silent save the sound of Harry in the infirmary, still screaming obscenities and taunts at the door. Snape had stopped breathing. He was staring at Draco with the kind of blank expression that could only mean he was truly livid.

"You thought it was yours."

It wasn't a question, but he answered anyway. "Yes, Professor."

"You did something about it."

Draco unconsciously took another step back. "I... yes, Professor."

The blank expression wavered for just a moment and Draco considered running, but he was saved the trouble of fleeing for his life by the Headmaster, who had chosen that moment to step out of the infirmary. Dumbledore looked from Snape, to Draco, then back again. "Has he anything to say?"

Snape nodded slowly. "He thought it was his, Professor, and decided to take care of the situation in the Malfoy family tradition."

Draco cringed openly, not bothering to hide the hurt. It sounded so much worse put that way, but he knew Snape was right. It really was a bastard thing to do, a very Malfoy thing. Dumbledore considered Draco for a moment. "We'll have to get in touch with his father, I've no wish to see him expelled, but with the severity of what he's done, I'm not sure it can be avoided."

Oh, god, his father was going to know everything. Draco gulped down the bile that was rising in his throat. "Headmaster?"

Dumbledore looked over suddenly and Draco thought he caught a flash of rage in his expression that far surpassed even his father's temper. It died as quickly as he saw it, though. "Yes, child?"

"Headmaster, my father..." will kill me. He stuttered to a stop, realizing that there was nothing he could really say at the moment without sounding utterly pathetic. His father would kill him, yes, but he'd killed Harry's child. Turn about really was fair play. "Nothing, sir."

The Headmaster didn't question it. He turned back to Snape, whose fists had clenched together in a surprising display of self-control. "Severus, he's yours to deal with until such time as Harry can recover his sense and I can decide the best course of action."

Harry's voice rose from behind the door. "No! I'm not taking anything else until you let me up so I can KILL HIM! Get in here, Malfoy! I know you're out there!"

Oh, bloody hell. Draco rung his hands behind his back and Dumbledore sighed. "I suppose I should go and tighten the restraints." Snape's frown deepened. "Don't worry, Severus, my boy, he'll calm down eventually. Until then you are dismissed from classes, I'll find someone to replace you for the remainder of the term."

Snape opened his mouth to argue, but a stern look from Dumbledore and he closed it. "Harry needs you with him and while I may not approve, it is his decision. Escort Mr. Malfoy to his dorms and return immediately."

That said Dumbledore left, and went back into the infirmary with the hysterically screaming Harry Potter. Draco had the insane urge to grab onto Dumbledore's robes as they swished behind the door and beg not to be left alone with Snape, because Snape would kill him. Then the guilt chirped in, as it had been doing every few seconds since he first found out his plan had worked, and reminded him, once again, that he had just killed an innocent fetus and that if Snape wanted to kill him it would actually be justified.

Snape, however, hadn't lunged at Draco the moment they were left alone. He'd stayed standing exactly where he was, staring at the young Malfoy with the kind of deep contempt that was reserved for things like that Professor Lupin, who had taught Defense in his third year.

"You are confined to your dorm when not attending classes; that includes meals. You will be eating in your dorm room as well. You are also off the Quidditch team. And while I can't take house points without it looking suspicious, you will be having detention with me every day until the end of time. Is that understood?"

Draco wanted to scream that taking him off the team was unfair, but it wasn't, so he nodded numbly and went about wondering exactly how he was expected to survive locked in a room alone with a man who wanted him dead.

"Return to your dorm and if I find that you've deviated from the path you will be appropriately reprimanded."

He might as well have said you'll be hanging my your lower intestines from the dungeon ceiling. Draco nodded again and turned around, walking as briskly as he could without breaking into an all-out run.

Snape watched the quickly retreating figure and fingered his wand under his sleeve. He couldn't do it right then, but very soon he would be able to do all the lovely things that were currently playing themselves out in his head. Some of them were legal, some not, but he'd do them all. He'd kill the obnoxious, spoiled little pure blood, then bring him back and kill him again. Draco bloody Malfoy was going to pay for ruining all those months (no, it had been over a year now) of planning.

It had taken nearly six months alone to seduce Harry Potter without the reckless little sod realizing he was being seduced. Months of pulling on every Slytherin tactic he'd ever been even heard of to make the boy think of his hated professor as anything else. Months of catching his eye and holding it just a fraction too long, of 'accidentally' brushing against him when he walked past, of lowering his voice to one decibel above bedroom when they were alone together, of picking certain words and phrases that would eventually eat their way through the boy's innocent exterior and plant themselves in his head.

Then, once the object of obsession was safely in his bed, he'd realized that it wasn't enough. It wasn't enough that Harry came for him at night, dreamed about him in his sleep, or fantasized about him during class, because Harry was still a Potter, regardless of who he was sleeping with, and in the tradition of all Potters before him, he insisted on throwing himself into danger without thinking first. A concerned lover simply was not enough to bend his nature, but Snape knew what was. He knew what had settled James and James's father and his father before him and so on for countless generations. Potters were protective of their young, their little cubs who couldn't yet protect themselves.

It hadn't taken him long to formulate the plan, but to prepare the potion, to find a way to slip it to Harry without him realizing, to make sure they had sex nearly every other day, just in case he'd taken it and Snape hadn't noticed (not likely, but miracles could happen), to pretend he knew nothing, all of that had taken self-control he hadn't known he possessed. What if Harry rushed off, not knowing his condition? What if he got drunk again and fell down the stairs?

Of course, the best test of his control had come when he'd looked up from between his lover's thighs, into his flushed face and realized that the plateau of Harry's stomach no longer sunk in, but lay flat. He'd allowed himself one touch, one creep of his hand through the trial of dark hair, over the taught skin and muscles of the Quidditch toned abdomen. It had been another month before he could say anything, when the flat of Harry's stomach had rissen just enough to be noticeable.

'You're filling out.' He'd run his hand down Harry's side and snuck it around the front to feel the subtle slope before diving down to grasp the already erect cock pressing into his stomach.

'I am not.' Harry moaned into Snape's neck, such delicious little moans of pleasure that Snape would die before letting another hear.

'You are.' He'd bit the boy's ears, relishing in the pleased yelp. 'I may yet be able to fuck you without fearing that you'll break.'

Then Harry had gone and let himself be fucked by the Malfoy brat. The only thing that had saved the Slytherin student was that his Harry had not enjoyed it and that it would never happened again. Snape really only had himself to blame. He knew Harry's emotions better than Harry himself and he should never have let himself laugh at the look on the boy's face. It had, however, been very amusing, and Snape did not find very many things amusing.

Even his mistake had served its purposes, though. The end of the year was nearing and Harry had a tendency to get into danger near the end of the year. It had become a matter of great importance that Harry find out about his condition soon, and Snape could not be there when he did. He needed Harry to run to him for answers so that he could pretend it was a ridiculous idea and then be stunned when it turned out to be true. Malfoy had been very convenient to that end – someone that would provoke him into giving them both detention, someone that would do a very thorough job of cataloging, someone who knew just enough about potions and about Snape to know what was there and what it was used for, and, more importantly, someone that Harry didn't fully trust.

The Headmaster, no doubt, knew exactly what was going on the moment Harry meekly confessed who the father was. He put a great deal of trust in Snape, yes, but he also knew him. Albus knew that if Severus wanted something he would find a way to get it, that he could never be seduced by a fumbling child, and he also knew that his spy did not allow himself to want anything lightly. If Snape had not only allowed himself want Harry, but had taken him as well, then it was not simply some mild affection, and if he had done this, as well, then there was a reason and Albus would trust that it was for the best until it proved otherwise.

The Headmaster was not his problem, however, his problem was Malfoy and a certain, elaborate, brilliantly executed plan that he had ruined because he couldn't stomach the idea of being a father for two more bloody weeks. For that, Draco would die - multiple times - and Lucius would have suffer sleeping with Narcissa again. Snape shuddered involuntarily. Poor Lucius.

Over a year of planning and he was back to the beginning. Well, nearly the beginning. Harry was still his and he could see to it that his lover became amenable to the idea of having a child again very soon. In fact... yes, it would be quite easy. Having lost this one so late in the pregnancy, Harry would be easy pray for suggestion. He'd be begging Snape within a few months, and when Snape refused to give him the potion, Harry would take it behind his back, because that was how Harry was – naive, vulnerable, and stubborn. A true Potter.

Harry's scream cut through his thoughts like a knife. Oh, well, Malfoy and revenge could wait; he had other things to attend to first. With a grand sweep of his robes, Snape turned and strode into the infirmary.

-Finish-